Michigan State University (MSU) has one of my favourite resource websites about Native Plants and Ecosystem Services. I really admire the scientific research they do and the way they present their findings. Also, since Michigan is practically next door and is also surrounded by the Great Lakes, it has a very similar natural history to that of the Greater Toronto Area. Historically, this area of Michigan was covered by tallgrass prairie, which continued up along the sand ridge through Windsor, to Toronto, and finally ended with the easternmost prairies in North America at the Rice Lake Plains.
See on the map? MSU is at a very similar latitude as Toronto; latitude has a large impact on local environmental conditions. We can even bike to MSU in only 28 hours if we take Macomb Orchard Trail!
The resource that I wanted to highlight from MSU is the Attracting Beneficial Insects with Native Flowering Plants booklet. This booklet was published in 2007 by several researchers from the Department of Entemology at MSU. I came across this resource several years ago when I was at a conference in grad school. It features some great close-up pictures of beneficial insects and provides some useful definitions of native beneficial predators, parasitoids, and pollinators. My favourite part of the resource is the chart that shows a list of tallgrass prairie plant species and their blooming times.
This chart clearly shows how important it is to provide beneficial insects
with food sources throughout the entire growing season. The chart can be
used when planning your garden to ensure that you are supporting
insects over the course of the year. Just select plants with overlapping bloom times across the season from spring to fall. Bloom times for native plants can be found in native plant identification guides, in native plant databases, and in native plant catalogues from local nurseries that specialize in producing native plants.
