How To Sustain Local Pollinators by Nurturing Late-Summer Flowers

How To Sustain Local Pollinators by Nurturing Late-Summer Flowers

As spring flowers fade into memory, ghosts of another season, what takes their place? Brown grass and weeds? Consider the summer flower. Given our Mediterranean climate, California’s native pollinators — sweat bees, hover flies, hunting wasps — evolved with a world-class spring wildflower display but relatively scarce dry-season forage. Specialized late-summer bloomers like buckwheat, yarrow, and aster helped sustain these critical insects throu…