The nutritional needs of bees are complex and monoculture crops aren’t providing a diverse diet. Introducing more diverse wildflower meadows and green spaces could benefit wild pollinators.
A bumblebee flying over a blooming bramble bush.
Legonkov Vladimir
There’s a lot of enthusiasm for wildflower fields and bug hotels. But before introducing these insect-saving measures, we need to better understand when they help – and when they don’t.
Purple saxifrage, snow pearlwort and drooping saxifrage (left to right).
Sarah Watts
Before you reach for the weed killer, spare a thought for struggling pollinators.
Native wildflowers, such as these Dutchman’s breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) that bloom early in spring are losing access to sunlight as trees leaf out earlier.
Katja Schulz/Flickr
Many beloved wildflowers bloom in early spring, while trees are still bare and the flowers have access to sunlight. Climate change is throwing trees and wildflowers out of sync.
Peggy Frew’s masterful control of Wildflowers, her fourth novel – about three sisters, once close, now estranged – promises not to engulf readers in the sorrow it must expose. Debra Adelaide reviews.
The internet has become a new player in plant care advice.
Kanawa_Studio/iStock via Getty Images Plus
New research found colour played a major role skewing researcher bias — pretty, vibrant flowers get more scientific attention than dull plants, regardless of their ecological significance.
Red mason bee just hatched out of its cocoon.
Hazet/Wikimedia Commons
Wildflower artist Kathleen McArthur led one of Australia’s first major conservation battles, over Queensland’s Cooloola region. Yet this canny activist is rarely mentioned in most accounts of the campaign.
Poppies at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
katatrix/shuttershock.com
The wildflowers that WWI soldiers encountered in Europe become symbols of remembrance and the fragility of life. The red poppy in particular is a powerful motif in Australian war art and photography.
There are fewer than a thousand Graveside gorge wattles in Kakadu National Park.
Parks Australia