Pollinator Conservation Resources: Southeast Region

(Photo: Xerces Society / Ray Moranz)

Welcome to our Pollinator Conservation Resources for the Southeast Region! Here you'll find region-specific collections of publications, native seed vendors, and other resources to aid in planning, establishing, restoring, and maintaining pollinator habitat—as well as materials to help you learn about the species of invertebrates and native plants you might encounter. For more resources, see our Publications Library or learn about our Pollinator Conservation Program.

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Habitat Assessment

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Habitat Assessment Guide for Pollinators: Yards, Gardens, and Parks

Landscaping for pollinators is one of the easiest ways for urban, suburban, and rural residents to directly benefit local wildlife. Schoolyards, community gardens, back yards, corporate campuses, rain gardens, and neighborhood parks all have the potential to meet the most basic needs of pollinators, including protection from pesticides, and resources for foraging, nesting, and overwintering.

Habitat Assessment Guide for Pollinators: Farms and Agricultural Landscapes

This pollinator habitat assessment guide is designed for a single site on a farm or agricultural landscape.

Habitat Assessment Guide For Pollinators: Natural Areas and Rangelands

This pollinator habitat assessment guide is designed for natural areas and rangelands.

Habitat Assessment Guide for Beneficial Insects: Farms and Agricultural Landscapes

This beneficial insect habitat assessment guide is designed for a single site on a farm or agricultural landscape.

Estimated Costs to Establish Wildflower Plantings Using Chemical Fallow

This Xerces Society fact sheet provides a quick overview of the estimated costs of establishing wildflower habitat for pollinators on conventional farms.

Habitat Installation

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Organic Site Preparation for Wildflower Establishment

Site preparation is one of the most important and often inadequately addressed components for successfully installing pollinator habitat. These guidelines provide step-by-step instructions, helpful suggestions, and regional timelines & checklists for preparing both small and large sites.

Habitat Installation Guide: Florida Conservation Cover (327) for Pollinators
These region-and state-specific guidelines provide in-depth practical guidance on how to install and maintain nectar- and pollen-rich habitat for pollinators in the form of wildflower meadow plantings/conservation cover (NRCS Conservation Practice 327) that provide nectar and pollen throughout the growing season, and nesting habitat for bees in the southeast, focused on Florida. Seed mixes and plant recommendations for each region are included in the appendix.

Habitat Installation Guide: Florida Hedgerow Planting (422) for Pollinators

These instructions provide in-depth guidance on how to install linear rows of native flowering shrubs and trees (NRCS Conservation Practice 422) that provide nectar and pollen throughout the growing season, and nesting habitat for bees in the southeast, focused on Florida. Plant recommendations are included in the appendix.

Establishing Pollinator Meadows from Seed
Establishing wildflower habitat for pollinators is the single most effective course of action to conserve pollinators that can be taken by anyone at any scale. These guidelines provide step-by-step instructions for establishing pollinator meadows from seed in areas that range in size from a small backyard garden up to areas around an acre.

Cover Cropping for Pollinators and Beneficial Insects

This 16-page bulletin will help you use cover crops to encourage populations of pollinators and beneficial insects on your farm while you address your other resource concerns. It begins with a broad overview of pollinator and beneficial insect ecology, then describes cover crop selection and management, how to make cover crops work on your farm, and helpful and proven crop rotations. It will also touch on the limitations of cover crops and pesticide harm reduction, among other topics.

Estimated Costs to Establish Pollinator Hedgerows

This fact sheet outlines the estimated costs of establishing hedgerow habitat for pollinators. Pollinator hedgerows are diverse linear plantings of native flowering trees, shrubs, perennial wildflowers and grasses designed to provide foraging and nesting habitat for pollinators. These estimates represent average costs of establishing hedgerows from transplants, and are derived from a series of pollinator hedgerow habitat projects throughout the United States. Actual costs vary from project to project and region to region.

Plant Lists

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Buying Bee-Safe Plants

Our guide, Buying Bee-Safe Plants, covers four ways to help you find plants that are safe for bees, and includes tips and questions to use at the nursery. Check out our Bee-Safe Nursery Plants webpage for more information.

Milkweed Seed Finder

As part of our Project Milkweed, we have created this comprehensive national directory of milkweed seed vendors to help you find sources of seed. To learn more about monarch butterflies and how you can participate in conservation efforts, please visit the Xerces Society’s Monarch Butterfly Conservation page or the Monarch Joint Venture webpage.

Pollinator Plants: Southeast Region
Recommended native plants that are highly attractive to pollinators such as native bees, honey bees, butterflies, moths, and hummingbirds, and are well-suited for small-scale plantings in gardens, on business and school campuses, in urban greenspaces, and in farm field borders.

Monarch Nectar Plants: Southeast Region

This Xerces Society fact sheet features recommended native plants that are highly attractive to pollinators such as native bees, honey bees, butterflies, moths, and hummingbirds, and are well-suited for small-scale plantings in gardens, on business and school campuses, in urban greenspaces, and in farm field borders.

Pollinator Plants: Florida

Recommended native plants that are highly attractive to pollinators such as native bees, honey bees, butterflies, moths, and hummingbirds, and are well-suited for small-scale plantings in gardens, on business and school campuses, in urban greenspaces, and in farm field borders.

Monarch Nectar Plants: Florida

Roadside Habitat for Monarchs: Milkweeds of the Southeast

A diversity of milkweed species is found on roadsides, and play an important role in supporting the life cycle of monarchs. This guide can help you recognize the most common native species of milkweed on roadsides in your region.

Roadside Habitat for Monarchs: Milkweeds of Arkansas, Louisiana & Mississippi

Roadside Habitat for Monarchs: Milkweeds of Florida

Native Plant Profiles and Lists
The Xerces Society has collaborated with the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center to create plant lists that are attractive to native bees, bumble bees, honey bees, and other beneficial insects, as well as plant lists with value as nesting materials for native bees. These lists can be narrowed down with additional criteria such as state, soil moisture, bloom time, and sunlight requirements.

The Diversity and Floral Hosts of Bees at the Archbold Biological Station, Florida
This academic research paper details the results of a survey of bee visitation to various Florida plants.

Butterfly Gardening in Florida
An in-depth guide to nectar and larval host plants for Florida butterflies.

Habitat Management

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Arkansas NRCS Pollinator Conservation Planning Handbook

This document is provided primarily as a guidance tool for NRCS planners in Arkansas. Landowners with an interest in enhancing diversity on their farms for improving pollination and pest management will also find it valuable.

Farming with Soil Life: A Handbook for Supporting Soil Invertebrates and Soil Health on Farms

This guide focuses on the diverse, often overlooked, and essential living species that we know best: the major invertebrates (macrofauna and mesofauna) found in temperate agricultural soils. There is a focus on North America in the groups of organisms and the soil health practices that are covered, but many groups are present in these soil types around the world, and the same management principles apply. Larger soil animals, such as ground beetles, woodlice, and springtails, and their many companions, have received less attention than soil microbes in recent years.

Maintaining Diverse Stands of Wildflowers

High quality pollinator meadows sometimes experience a decline in wildflower diversity or abundance as they age. This guide provides recommendations on how to bring declining meadows back into a high quality condition.

Collecting and Using Your Own Wildflower Seed

In this document we outline the basic steps of collecting native plant seed using readily available, non-specialized equipment, as well as tips for cleaning, storing, and sharing seed to expand pollinator habitat on farms and in our communities.

Nesting & Overwintering Habitat For Pollinators & Other Beneficial Insects

This guide focuses on a variety of natural nesting habitat features that can be readily incorporated into most landscapes. Compared to artificial nesting options such as bee blocks and bee hotels, natural nesting habitat features often better mimic the natural nest site density of insects, and also break down naturally with time, limiting disease and parasite issues.

Bee Conservation in the Southeast

An overview of common bees in the Southeast and recommended plants and habitat management practices for their conservation.

Wild Pollinators of Eastern Apple Orchards (Second Edition)

(Note: most of the information in this booklet is relevant to apple production in the Pacific Northwest region)
This book includes a photo guide to bees most important to apple production in the East, steps to conserving wild bee populations, plant recommendations to enhance habitat, summary of bee toxicities for commonly used orchard pesticides, and links to additional information. Note: most of the information in this booklet is relevant to apple production in the Pacific Northwest region.

Roadside Best Management Practices that Benefit Pollinators

These best management practices provide concrete steps that can be taken by any roadside management agency to improve roadside vegetation for pollinators. The BMPs cover management of existing habitat, including ways to modify the use of mowing and herbicides to enhance roadsides, and methods to incorporate native plants and pollinator habitat into the design of new roadsides.

Roadside Habitat For Monarchs: Monarch Butterflies, Weeds, and Herbicides

Roadsides provide more than just milkweed. They can also provide diverse nectar sources to feed adult monarchs and other pollinators—but ensuring that roadsides can continue to provide the best habitat requires some thought and care. This guide highlights best management practices to reduce the impacts of herbicides on monarchs.

Pesticide Protection

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Guidance to Protect Habitat from Pesticide Contamination: Creating and Maintaining Healthy Pollinator Habitat

This Xerces Society guidance document was designed to help growers, land managers, and others safeguard pollinator habitat from harmful pesticide contamination. It includes information on selecting habitat sites, as well as ways to maintain clean habitat by limiting and carefully managing pesticide use.

Smarter Pest Management: Protecting Pollinators at Home

Most of North America’s native bee species only forage over a distance of a few hundred yards, so with a little planning, your yard can provide a safe space for bees and other pollinators to thrive. All you need to give them are flowering plants throughout the growing season, undisturbed places to nest, and protection from pesticides. This Xerces Society guide will help you with the last item, managing yard pests in a pollinator-friendly way.

Smarter Pest Management: Pollinator Protection for Cities and Campuses

This Xerces Society fact sheet introduces to city and campus land managers the concept of integrated pest management (IPM), a system that emphasizes prevention first and seeks to eliminate the underlying causes of plant diseases, weeds, and insect problems rather than relying on routine use of pesticides.

Buying Bee-Safe Plants
Creating a welcoming home for local pollinators in your home garden or city park habitat is reason enough to choose plants free from harmful pesticide residues. Nurseries are more likely to make investments in pollinator-friendly production if their customers make it clear this is what they want. Our guide, Buying Bee-Safe Plants, covers four ways to help you find plants that are safe for bees, and includes tips and questions to use at the nursery.

Offering Bee-Safe Plants: A Guide for Nurseries

Three core elements of pollinator-friendly growing include using non-chemical methods to prevent and manage pests, monitoring of pest pressure, and limiting risk to pollinators if pesticides are used. These concepts are rooted in integrated pest management and are familiar to most growers. Offering Bee-Safe Nursery Plants: A Guide for Nurseries explains these concepts further and was created for wholesalers and retailers to explore, encourage, and implement pollinator friendly pest-management in the nursery business.

Protecting Pollinators from Pesticides: Fungicide Impacts on Pollinators

From large farms to small backyard gardens, many people use fungicides to control plant pathogens. While insecticides have long been recognized as a threat to bees and other beneficial insects, fungicides have generally been assumed to be relatively harmless. Though most fungicide exposures won’t kill a bee immediately, a growing body of research suggests that some fungicides can cause subtle yet significant harm. This Xerces Society fact sheet delves into how these impacts on pollinators occur, and offers mitigation measures and alternative pest management strategies.

How to Reduce Bee Poisoning from Pesticides

This detailed guide, produced jointly by the extension services of Oregon State University, Washington State University, and the University of Idaho, offers guidance on how to select and apply insecticides. Extensive tables list the toxicity to bees of dozens of chemicals and how long after application they remain hazardous to bees in the field.

Protecting Bees from Neonicotinoids in Your Garden

Neonicotinoids are a group of insecticides that are used widely on farms, as well as around our homes, schools, and city landscapes. This Xerces Society brochure explains why they are a risk to bees, gives examples of neonicotinoid garden products, and gives some simple tips for protecting bees from these insecticides.

How Neonicotinoids Can Kill Bees: The Science Behind the Role These Insecticides Play in Harming Bees

In this Xerces Society report, we present an overview of research that clearly documents neonicotinoid impacts on bees. The report also covers what can be inferred from existing research, and identifies knowledge gaps that will need to be filled to allow for better-informed decisions about the future use and regulation of these chemicals.

Beyond the Birds and the Bees: Effects of Neonicotinoid Insecticides on Agriculturally Important Beneficial Insects

This Xerces Society report details potential negative impacts of neonicotinoid insecticides on important beneficial insects. It also makes recommendations on how we can better protect important beneficials like beetles and wasps.

Organic Pesticides: Minimizing Risks to Pollinators and Beneficial Insects

These Xerces Society guidelines provide a brief overview of how to select and apply pesticides for organic farm operations while minimizing pollinator mortality. Many of the practices outlined here for protecting pollinators also can help to protect beneficial insects such as parasitoid wasps and flies; predaceous wasps, flies, and beetles; ambush and assassin bugs; lacewings; and others. The presence of these insects can further reduce pest pressure and the need for chemical treatments.

Common Organic-Allowed Pesticides: A Comparative Overview

Intended as a companion document to Organic Pesticides: Minimizing Risks to Pollinators and Beneficial Insects, this fact sheet is intended to be a quick reference to help you select and use organically-approved pesticides with the least impact on bees and other beneficial insects.

Supporting Ecologically Sound Mosquito Management: Protecting Pollinators from Pesticides

This Xerces Society fact sheet provides a brief overview of mosquito management methods that protect both people and pollinators, plus two case studies in effective mosquito management.

IPI Database

The IPI database contains summaries of research articles on pesticides, their effects on invertebrates, and pesticide movement in the environment. Articles have been reviewed and summarized to highlight key findings by Xerces Society staff.

Preventing or Mitigating Potential Negative Impacts of Pesticides on Pollinators Using Integrated Pest Management and Other Conservation Practices

Agronomy Technical Note No. 9.

Identification & Monitoring

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Rusty-Patched Bumble Bee Pocket Identification Guide
A full color print-and-fold guide to the rusty-patched bumble bee (Bombus affinis), a formerly common species believed to be in decline. Includes images of similar looking species.

Bumble bees of the Eastern United States
This field guide was produced by the USDA Forest Service and the Pollinator Partnership. The Guide covers the most commonly encountered bumble bees of the Eastern United States. Each bee species has information on preferred food plants, nesting biology, seasonal activity patterns, identification guidelines, and distribution maps.

Native Seed & Plant Vendors

Vendors

Buying Bee-Safe Plants

Milkweed Seed Finder

Abide A While Garden Center, Mount Pleasant, SC
Abide A While Garden Center offers native and non-native plants.

All Native Garden Center & Plant Nursery, Fort Meyers, FL
This nursery sells wildflowers, shrubs, trees and aquatic species native to Florida.

Applewood Seed Company, Arvada, CO
Applewood Seed Company offers native wildflower and garden flower seeds.

Aquatic Plants of Florida, Inc. , Sarasota, FL
APF provides wholesale freshwater grasses, wildflowers, trees and shrubs, including salt-tolerant species, native to the Southeastern U.S.

Bamert Seed Company, Muleshoe, TX
Bamert Seed company offers over 200 species of high quality native grasses, forbs, and legumes.

Biophilia Native Nursery, Elberta, AL
Biophilia offers a wide range of native wildflowers and seeds, with a focus on species that are host plants for butterflies.

Biosphere Consulting, Inc. , Winter Garden, FL
Biosphere’s nursery provides native wetland and upland herbaceous plants, shrubs and trees, as well as wildflower seeds.

Carolina Wetland Services, Charlotte, NC
The native plant nursery of Carolina Wetland Services provides aquatic, wetland and riparian plants of the Southwest region.

Carolina Wild, Anderson, SC
Carolina Wild specializes in containerized perennials, grasses, shrubs and vines native to South Carolina, SW North Carolina, and NE Georgia.

Coastal Plain Conservation Nursery, Inc., Edenton, NC
Coastal Plain Conservation Nursery propagates wild-type native wetland and aquatic plants for projects in the Carolinas, southeastern Virginia, and beyond.

Dropseed Native Nursery, Goshen, KY
Dropseed Native Plant Nursery supplies local ecotype plants and seeds for prairie and wetland species of Kentucky.

Elk Mountain Nursery, Asheville, NC
Elk Mountain Nursery specializes in forbs, shrubs, vines, and trees native to the Eastern United States.

Environmental Concern, St. Michaels, MD
Environmental Concerns is a 501(c)3 public not for profit dedicated to working with all aspects of wetlands in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and beyond. They have 120 native wetland plans in propagation for wetland restoration efforts.

Environmental Seed Producers, Lompoc, CA
Environmental Seed Producers supplies high quality bulk wildflower seed, dazzling wildflower seed mixtures, and reliable easy-care garden flower seed.

Ernst Conservation Seed, Live Oak, FL
Offers Xerces-reviewed seed mixes for pollinator conservation projects.
Ernst sells a diversity of Southeastern ecotype native wildflower and grass seeds, as well as planting material of trees and shrubs.

Florida Association of Native Nurseries , Melbourne, FL
The Florida Association of Native Nurseries (“FANN”) provides a wealth of information about using Florida native plants in gardens, landscaping, and restoration.

Florida Native Plants, Inc. , Sarasota, FL
Florida Native Plants Nursery provides young trees, shrubs, palms, grasses, ground covers, aquatics, and wildflowers native to Florida.

Florida Wildflower Cooperative, Crescent City, FL
Florida Wildflower Cooperative produces and supplies high quality wildflower seed and plant materials restoration in Florida.

Gardens of Blue Ridge, Pineola, NC
Gardens of Blue Ridge is a family owned and operated company specializing in wildflowers, ferns, native orchids, trees and shrubs.

Georgia Forestry Commission Nursery, Macon, GA
Georgia Forestry Commission Nursery sells tree seedlings that are adapted to Georgia’s unique climate and soils.

Growild, Inc. , Fairview, TN
GroWild is a plant nursery specializing in native Eastern U. S. plants, including perennials, wildflowers, trees, shrubs, vines, and grasses.

Ironweed Native Plant Nursery , Columbia, KY
Ironweed is a plant nursery specializing in native Kentucky plants. Every effort is made to obtain seed from multiple locations within the Interior Low Plateaus Physiographic Province of Kentucky.

Legare Farms, Johns Island, SC
Legare Farms grows Zoysia, Bermuda, St. Augustine, and Centipede sod as well as a variety of nursery plants.

Mail Order Natives, Lee, FL
Mail Order Natives offers native plants grown in their own facility.

Maple Street Natives, West Melbourne, FL
Maple Street’s retail and wholesale nursery offers over 150 species of Central Florida native plants.

Meek’s Farms & Nursery, Kite, GA
Meek’s Farms & Nursery provides native deep plug container seedlings.

Mellow Marsh Farm, Siler City, NC
Mellow Marsh Farm specializes in the propagation of wetland plants native to the Southeast. Their plants are grown from seed collected in the Carolinas and Virginia.

Naturescapes of Beaufort, Lady’s Island, SC
Naturescapes of Beaufort offers earth-friendly landscaping, native plant sales, educational programs, vegetation surveys, and consultation services.

Nashville Natives, LLC, Fairview, TN
Nashville Natives sells native wildflowers, ferns, grasses, trees and shrubs of Tennessee ecotype.

Native Nurseries of Tallahassee, Inc. , Tallahassee, FL
This retail nursery specializes in woodland native plants as well as coastal / dune plants of Florida.

Nearly Native Nursery, Fayetteville, GA
Nearly Native Nursery is a specialty nursery that promotes, sells, and propagates native plants for all types of landscapes.

Prairie Frontier, Wankesha, WI
Prairie Frontier specializes in native wildflower and prairie grass seed.

Pure Native, Lafayette, LA
Pure Native, out of University of Louisiana at Lafayette, cultivates approximately 50 species that were collected as seed from natural remnant coastal prairie populations in Texas and Louisiana. All plants are true Cajun prairie natives.

Taylor Nursery (SC Forestry Commission) Trenton, SC
Taylor Nursery provides wiregrass and local ecotype wildflower plus and native trees and shrubs. They will also grow plugs from collected seed for a specific contract or project.

The Natives, Inc. , Davenport, FL
Florida native grasses, sandhill and scrub species, wildflowers, wetland trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants can all be found at The Natives plant nursery.

Roundstone Native Seed, Upton, KY
Roundstone produces native grass, wildflower, and legume seed and plant materials, and specializes in Ohio Valley and Southeastern ecotypes.

Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation Native Plant Nursery, Sanibel, FL
The Native Plant Nursery is a retail nursery that sells a variety of live native plants appropriate for the southwest Florida region.

Shady Grove Nursery, Orangeburg, SC
Shady Grove Nursery offers a wide selection of better cultivars in hollies, southern magnoliaas, and shad and flowering trees.

Sharp Brothers Seed Company, Clinton, MO
Sharp Brothers Seed Company offers a limited selection of native seeds, native habitat and grass mixtures.

Southern Habitats, Greenville, FL
Southern Habitats specializes in the use of native plants to create havens for the wildlife of the Southeast United States.

Sunlight Gardens, Andersonville, TN
Sunlight Gardens specializes in primarily herbaceous plants that are native to the Eastern United States.

Wilcox Nursery, Largo, FL
Wilcox Nursery provides native-to-Florida trees, shrubs, wildflowers and grasses.

Woodlanders, Aiken, SC
Woodlanders nursery offers native grasses, wildflowers, trees, and shrubs in containers.

Seed Mixes

Buying Bee-Safe Plants

Bee Happy Native Seed Mix for the South-Central U.S.

From Native American Seed in Junction, Texas, this mix includes a diversity of annual and perennial native wildflowers that provide quality sources of nectar and pollen for pollinators. This mix is appropriate for habitat restoration in southern Arizona and New Mexico, eastern Colorado, Kansas, southern Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, northern Mexico, Arkansas, Louisiana, and the Southeastern coastal plain.

Mid-Atlantic Native Seed Mix

This mix produced by Ernst Conservation Seeds includes high quality native perennial wildflowers that are highly attractive to pollinators, and a native bunch grass that provides nesting habitat for bumble bees and other beneficial insects. This mix is suitable for habitat restoration in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, northeastern North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

Bumble Bee Watch

Bumble Bee Watch is a collaborative effort to track and conserve North America’s bumble bees. Everyone is invited to contribute to this important community science effort. Have fun while learning more about bumble bees and the vital role they play in our environment!

Bee Better Certified

Bee Better Certified™ partners with farmers and food companies to conserve bees and other pollinators in agricultural lands. The Bee Better Certified seal identifies and celebrates farmers and businesses that adopt farm management practices that support pollinators, and gives consumers confidence that their purchasing decisions benefit pollinators and the farmers working to protect them.

Bee City & Bee Campus USA

The Bee City & Bee Campus USA programs endorse a set of commitments for creating sustainable habitats for native pollinators, which are vital to feeding the planet. Learn more how to make your town or campus better for bees today!