Welcome!

It was spring and we had just moved into our house when the bugs descended. Box elder bugs, stink bugs, lady bugs everywhere, inside and out. Irritated at having to share our new home with so many pesty neighbors, I went looking for home base.

 

What I found was astonishing. The hostas were simply overflowing with more bugs than I have ever seen in my life. So, I dug in. Literally. I started ripping out the hostas. And, as I tore them out, I marveled (read: I cursed) at how many bugs continued to pour out of the plants. Turns out, the landscaping was completely infested. I started researching the plants and found that none had good reviews from the people who know plants. So, true to my nature, the decision to remove the hostas turned into me digging up every single plant from the beds next to the house.

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Now that I had about 500 square feet of bare soil up against the house, I figured I probably needed a plan. Just to clarify: I'm known for my fruit and vegetable garden. At 2,500 square feet, it's larger than our first house! Flowers have never been my thing. In fact, for the longest time, my thinking went, "Why bother with flowers when I could be growing food?" Thank goodness my mother-in-law was on to the fact that plants can provide joy, not just food, long before I was. A master gardener, she gifted me several native flowers to plant in the beds. That was fine, but I still hadn't connected the dots.

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The next year I learned that the nondescript wall of green shrubbery between our yard and a neighbor's was actually a nasty invasive: buckthorn. I spent more hours than I care to remember cutting, digging, and yes - cursing - to get rid of the buckthorn thicket. My husband had to cut down a few of the largest with a chainsaw. And now I had another 500 square feet of exposed soil and, again, no plan....Sensing a trend, I decided I needed to do a little more research.

 

I learned that native plants play a vital role in many different facets of our ecosystems, including soil health, water conservation, wildlife habitats, and pollinator food. Because they are adapted to our climate, they don't require fertilizers, insecticides, or herbicides to thrive. Looking back on our little bug issue, I now understand that that was the result of an ecosystem wildly out of balance.

 

I started planting natives. The more I learned, the more I came to see native plants as a cornerstone of healthy communities. Replacing non-native plants with natives eliminates the need to apply harmful chemicals to landscaping. Pollinators depend on pollen and nectar from native plants as food sources so that they can, in turn, give life to the crops humans eat. Native plants - specifically, prairie strips - reduce soil erosion from farmland. And the list of benefits goes on.

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Fast forward to 2026. After the birth of our second child, I returned to a thankless job at a soulless institution. Having had several months away from the daily grind, I immediately felt the bitter contrast between the heaviness of a job sucking the life out of me and the joy of having created life. I realized that I needed to give the best of myself to life-giving work. And BirtleBee began!