Pine, or conifer, needles are leaves that evolved into a very different shape from the flat, broad deciduous leaves we normally think of as leaves. They’re narrow, waxy, and tough, and built to hang on through cold and drought rather than drop and regrow every year.

A pine tree’s needles come bundled in little sheathed clusters called fascicles, with either two, three, or five to a bundle. Each one of these is doing the same thing broad leaves do—catching light and turning it into food through photosynthesis.

Evergreen Doesn’t Mean Forever

We tend to learn to sort trees into two large bins: deciduous trees that drop their leaves, and evergreen trees that keep theirs. But “evergreen” doesn’t mean a needle lasts forever. It means that the tree as a whole will always be green, because it will always be holding a few years’ worth of leaves at once.

Most pine needles live somewhere between two and five years before dropping to the ground. Because the tree sheds only its innermost, oldest needles while the newest growth stays green at its branch tips, this loss usually goes unnoticed. Eastern white pines are the exception: they shed so many two- and three-year old needles at once that the interior of the tree turns vibrant yellow in the fall!

No pine ever sheds its needles all at once. Instead, they release needles to the ground in a slow, steady trickle, year-round or in short bursts like the white pine. The result on the forest floor is not a seasonal blanket but a deep, springy, ever-renewing layer. And that layer is habitat.

What Lives in Needle Duff

A thick layer of dead needles may look devoid of life, but peel that layer back and you’ll find one of the busiest neighborhoods in your garden. The mat of fallen needles, often called duff, shelters countless tiny species, including mites, beetles, spiders, ants, and centipedes.

These invertebrates serve as valuable food for the toads, salamanders, turtles, and snakes that live on and under the needle layer. Because most of our backyard birds depend on insects to feed their young, needle duff can also provide a buffet for many bird species.

Learn about the National Wildlife Federation’s work to restore longleaf pine habitat here!

Needle Layer vs. Broadleaf Layer

Needles are built differently from broadleaves, and they behave differently once they fall. A waxy cuticle, and slow-to-digest compounds means needles decompose far more gradually. Where a broadleaf layer can be half-gone by midsummer, matted down and well on its way to soil, a needle layer breaks down at a patient, steady pace and may remain for years after the tree dies.

Slow decomposition has its own gifts. Needle duff is durable and deep, and its interlocking, water-shedding structure knits into a mat that stays put on slopes and open ground where lighter leaves would simply blow or wash away. Instead of a seasonal blanket that arrives in fall and thins by summer, it offers steady, year-round cover to wildlife. Different tenants, a different rhythm, but still unmistakably alive.

So when the leaves come down this fall, remember that the needles coming down alongside them are leaves too. They’re feeding the soil, holding the ground in place, and sheltering an entire understory of small lives!

Learn how backyard birds use the leaf layer and take action this year by reducing your yard waste and putting the leaves to work!

A Place to Forage

Backyard birds may love your feeders, but most of their food comes from foraging in the natural environment. The leaf layer is a great place to forage. Under the leaves hide many food sources: fallen nuts and seeds, insects, and invertebrates. The leaves provide a moist environment where many of these small creatures thrive and hide. 

Birds that forage in the leaves can use their feet to sift through and uncover food. Plus, the leaf layer offers a good amount of camouflage from predators while birds are searching for food! You can often find red and brown species like thrushes, sparrows, and juncos foraging in the leaf layer. 

Nesting Material

Come breeding season, birds need a wealth of materials to use in their nests. Many species of backyard birds use fallen leaves and twigs. By leaving these materials unraked or in a pile at the edge of your garden, you are supplying birds with key building materials. 

Not only this, but some species, like Kentucky warblers and ovenbirds, will even build their nests nestled into the leaf layer. A deep leaf layer plays a crucial role in their nesting success, providing it with effective camouflage from predators as well as warmth for the young. 

Supports the Food Web

Even birds that may not directly visit the leaf layer to forage still benefit from the fallen leaves. A lot of insects spend most or even just part of their life in the leaves. For example, many butterflies and moths will overwinter there and those fireflies we love to see in the summer often spend the first stages of their life in the leaves too. 

All of these insects and arthropods are an essential part of the food web, and birds are especially dependent on them. In fact, about 95% of North American terrestrial birds rely on insects to some extent to rear their young. Unfortunately, terrestrial bird species dependent on such insect food have declined by a startling 2.9 billion individuals over the last 50 years, a 111-fold difference from species that do not depend on insects.

Read up on some of the species that depend on the leaf layer:

• Fireflies
• Moths and Butterflies
• Eastern Red Bat
• Seven Species that Need You to Leave the Leaves

Thank You to Our Habitat Champion: Wild Birds Unlimited!

Not only have Wild Birds Unlimited and its founder, Jim Carpenter, been amazing advocates for birds, but they have long understood the connection between birds and the larger need for habitat restoration. While seed feeders do a great job of supporting songbirds, most seed-eating species still depend on insects to feed their young. These insects, in turn, depend on native habitat. 

It’s clear that birds and native habitat are intrinsically connected. With this knowledge, Wild Birds Unlimited has been a staunch advocate for creating habitat as a way to support birds and other wildlife. This stance has formed the strong foundation of their long partnership with the National Wildlife Federation’s Certified Wildlife Habitat® program.

1. It Helps Wildlife

There are so many wildlife species that depend on fallen leaves. From moths, butterflies, and fireflies that often overwinter in the leaf layer to reptiles and birds that use it as a foraging location.

When you use the fallen leaves in your garden, you are providing wildlife with vital habitat that they need to survive!

2. It Benefits Your Soil

You can take advantage of nature’s oldest recycling system when you add fallen leaves to your garden beds. There’s a whole ecosystem of insects, arthropods, fungi, and microorganisms that will break down these leaves into rich fertilizer that replenishes nutrients in your soil. Skip the store bought stuff and let nature do the hard work for you!

3. It Reduces Waste

In one year alone, Americans disposed of over 35 million tons of yard waste, roughly the equivalent of 1.4 billion standard-size yard wastebags! And you might be surprised how much of this ends up in the landfill. 

When you use the fallen leaves in your garden, you’re reducing the amount of waste you produce.

4. It Can Suppress Weeds

Using fallen leaves as mulch in your garden beds can help prevent weeds from growing. A thick enough layer of leaves (we recommend a leaf layer of 3-5 inches) will block the sunlight and prevent weed seeds from growing. Plus, these leaves will eventually decompose and add nutrients back into your soil.

5. It Saves You Time and Money

There are lots of ways that using your fallen leaves benefits your schedule and wallet, from saving you time bagging up leaves and carting them to the curb, to reducing the need for you to buy store bought fertilizer and mulch. 

Discover How to Leave the Leaves

To get the most out of your fallen leaves, make a plan for how you’re going to use them. We recommend moving leaves off of pathways and turfgrass and using them in the following ways:

• As mulch in your garden beds
• Beneath native trees 
• In the compost to make a natural fertilizer

Learn more in our How to Leave the Leaves Tipsheet

Want to know which tree you’re most like? Take our native tree quiz here!

What is Trees for Wildlife?

The National Wildlife Federation’s Trees for Wildlife program helps grow the population of good neighbors by providing free or subsidized native tree seedlings to partners across the country who plant them through local habitat restoration projects or distribute them at community tree giveaway events.

Thanks to generous donor support, schools, nonprofits, municipalities, and conservation organizations are enabled to launch projects that create lasting benefits for both wildlife and the communities that care for them.

Some native trees are especially valuable because they support an extraordinary number of wildlife species. Known as keystone plants, these species form the foundation of healthy ecosystems. Planting them ensures that butterflies, native bees, birds, and other wildlife have the best chance of success.

2026 by the Numbers

In 2026, the Trees for Wildlife program helped distribute nearly 70,000 native trees representing more than 50 different types of trees. Among them were 16 keystone plants that support close to 500 species of butterfly and moth caterpillars.

Through these projects, partners helped restore habitats after natural disasters, increased future food availability for wildlife, and inspired people of all ages to connect with nature.

Through our partners outreach and activities, we engaged with nearly 23,000 people, giving them the opportunity to take part in hands-on conservation projects where they live, worship, and play. These five stories offer a glimpse into this year’s impact:

Partner Spotlights

University of Michigan-Flint | 500 trees

Sugar maples are great neighbors. Beyond producing the sap used to make maple syrup, sugar maples supply food for many mammals and insects while providing woodpeckers and other birds a safe area to nest.

To help students discover the value of native trees like the sugar maple, the University of Michigan-Flint hosted Genesee County Middle School for their Super Science Friday event where students traded in the classroom for hands-on learning in the great outdoors.

They explored forest ecology, practiced tree identification, and learned forestry skills alongside UMF wildlife biology students and faculty. The event provided the children with a greater understanding of the importance of trees in their communities and ecosystems while the planting of seedlings throughout campus will benefit local wildlife for years to come.

Tennessee Environmental Council (TEC) | 40,000 trees

Harsh winters often take a toll on both people and wildlife. For pollinators, the first taste of spring comes from the Eastern redbud, a tree whose pink and purple blossoms bloom even before its leaves emerge after each long winter, providing an early nectar source for bees and butterflies. The tree even serves as the host plant for the specialized bee Habropoda laboriosa.

Protecting these early signs of spring became a shared mission among thousands of Tennesseans. Following the devastating ice storms that damaged and destroyed thousands of trees across the state, more than 4,500 volunteers participated in the 12^th annual Tennessee Tree Day to help plant 40,000 Trees for Wildlife seedlings!

Thanks to the incredible planning efforts of the TEC pickup sites were set up in all 95 of Tennessee’s counties for the first time in the event’s history. This exceptional feat showcases how communities coming together can have a tremendous impact on restoring wildlife habitats after natural disasters.

Chesapeake Conservation and Climate Corps & Islamic Society of Baltimore (ISB) | 100 trees

Sweetbay Magnolias thrive where other trees struggle. Well adapted to swampy soils, they help stabilize flood-prone areas while supporting insects. They are pollinated by beetles that covet the tree’s aromatic white flowers and also serve as the host plant for the sweetbay silkmoth and tiger swallowtail butterfly.

These unique qualities made this tree an ideal species for an Earth Day planting event hosted by the Chesapeake Conservation and Climate Corps and the ISB. Together with students from Al-Rahmah School, volunteers planted native trees across the ISB campus. Located within a floodplain, the location provided the perfect setting for water-tolerant species, which will help reduce stormwater runoff while creating healthier habitat for wildlife and the surrounding community.

West Atlanta Watershed Alliance (WAWA) with the support of Allied World | 100 trees

Persimmon trees generously provide for the wildlife around them. Their fruit feeds birds and mammals well into fall and winter, while their spring flowers offer nectar and pollen for native bees, making them valuable neighbors throughout the year.

With generous support from Allied World, WAWA transformed what could have been a simple Arbor Day event into their 19th annual Urban Forest Fest, which was a multi-day celebration of community, creativity, and connection to nature.

Residents were invited to participate in guided hikes, take workshops for poetry and photography, and bring home one of the 130 trees given away at the events. With 70 trees remaining, WAWA and its volunteers banded together to plant the rest in designated locations throughout Atlanta, creating lasting habitat across the city.

North Carolina Wildlife Federation | 8,700 trees

Towering American sycamores have a huge impact on wildlife. These gentle giants that grow to heights of 100+ feet have an affinity for aquatic environments and are often found on the banks of rivers and streams. Their cavernous trunks create ideal nesting sites for birds like the wood duck and the iconic bald eagle. The tree’s expansive root system also helps stabilize fragile riverbanks and shorelines to protect them from erosion.

In North Carolina, native trees like the American sycamore have become an important part of the region’s recovery following hurricane Helene in 2024. Working alongside local partners, the North Carolina Wildlife Federation distributed thousands of Trees for Wildlife seedlings to landowners and communities across the state, helping protect against future erosion, reduce invasive species, and restore critical wildlife habitat.

This incredible work has not gone unnoticed: while working on the Watauga River, volunteers were greeted by a group of paddlers and anglers who thanked them for working to protect the waters they know and love.

More to Explore

• Want to see more of this year’s projects? Click here to explore our 2026 Event Summaries to learn how Trees for Wildlife partners are making a difference around the nation.
• To see more photos and learn where native trees are being planted, take a look at our interactive Trees for Wildlife Impact Map!

Help Future Trees for Wildlife Projects Take Root

Native trees are the neighbors that make every community stronger. They provide shelter, protect waterways, clean our air, and create healthier places for us all to live. As forests continue to disappear and wildlife habitat is fragmented by development, these pillars of our communities are being lost.

With your support, Trees for Wildlife can further invest in the future by putting native seedlings directly in the hands of community members so they can restore habitat, strengthen ecosystems, and create more resilient communities for generations to come.

1. Orientation

This is the launch of our program series! NWF gathers each new cohort in-person to provide an overview of the program, introduce the program team, and give every participating program site a chance to share their vision for their spaces with the rest of the cohort.

Most of these gatherings are hosted by a previous Sacred Grounds site, creating an opportunity for new participants to connect with past Sacred Grounds program participants/alumni. Following the Orientation, program participants usually walk the grounds of the host house of worship/community organization and hear from the site on their involvement, the impact of their project, and lessons learned.

2. Site Visits

Our technical partners (in Detroit: Friends of the Rouge; in Grand Rapids: Plaster Creek Stewards and LGROW) lead this phase of the program. During site visits, technical partners schedule and meet with each Sacred Grounds program site to conduct a site assessment and evaluate the feasibility of the proposed project.

Program reps meet our technical partners during this time to show them the areas of the property that they want to prioritize and feel are ideal for their community. At the end of this exchange, both partners and program representatives are clear about the options and next steps for installation.

In Detroit, these site visits are highly technical because our rain gardens are engineered Green Stormwater Infrastructure projects. So, garden feasibility includes: optimal stormwater capture, water availability, sun exposure, utility locations, soil composition, asphalt presence, etc. After these site visits, our technical partners go back to design and develop the preliminary garden designs in preparation for the Design Charrette.

3. Design Charrette

A design charrette is a collaborative session in which a group of stakeholders, usually including designers, planners, and community members, work together to develop a solution to a design challenge.

The aim is to facilitate an open, inclusive and creative space for ideas and feedback to be shared. In this phase, our goals are translated into a site-specific, bespoke landscape installation plan by mapping out the garden space and selecting appropriate plants for the local area.

NWF leads the overall flow of this workshop and gathering. The program sites come together to receive their proposed rain garden or native plant garden designs from our technical partners.

Participants review the final location of the garden, native plant palette, and overall design while collaborating with partners and fellow cohort members to provide feedback and discuss how they envision activating their space for their community.

We also incorporate a rain garden 101 or native plant 101 mini workshop that provides some baseline knowledge before installation. The design charrette can look different by city, but the goals include gaining knowledge around native plants/rain gardens, allowing each program site to provide feedback on their garden design, community cohort exchange, and fellowship.

4. Installation

Ahead of planting, the site is excavated or cleared for planting! Zones are drawn, and seedling plugs, often provided by local growers, are laid out in their designated spaces. Then, they’re planted by a crew of installers, usually including volunteers and organization staff. It’s an amazing moment where teamwork and community come together to enliven a new space. 

5. Garden Maintenance

Our maintenance plan and approach vary by program site, capacity and funding. However, following each planting, our program team (NWF and partners) provides a range of guidance, resources and varying levels of support to help sites successfully steward their gardens.

This may include maintenance training, seasonal site visits, volunteer workdays, written maintenance guides, and technical assistance. We also encourage sites to build long-term stewardship teams by engaging their congregants, youth groups, neighborhood residents, and community partners.

6. Celebration

Celebrations look a little different for every city! In this current Detroit programming cycle, we have funding to celebrate with a ribbon cutting and native plant giveaway. But at a minimum, NWF provides every participating Sacred Grounds site with a sign and certificate. We also try to support and encourage any sites that want to put on garden blessings, congregation gatherings or other community celebrations that reflect the desires and needs of each community.

But these wasps aren’t out for human blood, and their presence in your milkweed is a benefit to butterflies. Learn why these scary-looking insects are actually a wonder to have around the garden!

Your Milkweed is Working as Designed

Tarantula hawks are one of the main pollinators of milkweed. If you’re planting milkweed to support pollinators, then seeing these wasps around means your garden is succeeding!

Plus, by pollinating milkweed and other native plants, tarantula hawk wasps help ensure these important plants continue to grow in the landscape to provide habitat for monarchs and other pollinators. The wasp at the flower and the monarch you’re hoping to support are linked through the same plant.

Find milkweed for monarchs (and wasps) with our Native Plant Finder!

Tarantula Hawks are Docile While Foraging

Tarantula hawks at flowers are almost always docile. Foraging time is strictly for gaining energy, and aggression costs energy; there’s no reason for a nectaring wasp to spend its calories chasing a human. Pretty much the only time a foraging tarantula hawk will sting is if someone touches it or swats at it, in which case it is trying to protect itself. Stand near a milkweed full of these wasps and they will ignore you completely while they eat.

Aggression is for Rival Wasps, Not Humans

Male tarantula hawks claim dominance through a behavior called hilltopping, which is essentially the children’s game King of the Hill played by wasps.

A dominant male perches on the highest, most conspicuous post near foraging grounds—a tall shrub, the corner of a building, the tip of a fence—and launches out to investigate anything that moves past, including humans!

He’s checking whether the moving object is a rival male to be chased away or a receptive female to mate with. Either way, he needs to arrive at speed. Wait a few seconds, and the male will return to his post once he realizes you are not a wasp.

Male Wasps Can’t Sting

This is the most important point: only female tarantula hawks have stingers. The males doing the dramatic intercept flights from their perches, the ones that might feel like they are “chasing” you, are physically incapable of stinging. They might look terrifying but are completely harmless.

Females, meanwhile, spend most of their time in that calm, can’t-be-bothered foraging mood. When they’re not foraging, they’re hunting tarantulas—which is what the species name refers to. This is the only kind of animal they will sting aggressively, and they do it for a reason: to bring back to her nest, alive but paralyzed, to feed her young. Females do not chase humans. They chase tarantulas!

Designing Gardens with Tarantula Hawks in Mind

When gardening with milkweed in tarantula hawk territory, a couple design choices can substantially reduce unwanted encounters:

1. Tuck milkweed away from high-traffic paths and tall conspicuous perches. Doorways, walkways, and the immediate edges of buildings are exactly where you don’t want a hilltopping male to set up. Group plantings away from those zones when possible.
2. Build a better perch. If the affected area is near a building or other structure that’s currently the tallest perch around, consider installing a pole with a small platform on top, taller than the building, set about thirty feet away in a quieter spot. This may pull territorial males off the building edge and into a location where their displays won’t startle anyone.

The Bigger Picture

A milkweed planting that attracts tarantula hawks is a planting that’s pulling in real pollinator diversity. The same flowers feeding the wasps are feeding monarchs, native bees, and more. The wasps are also keeping the local tarantula population in check, which, depending on where you live, is a service worth keeping around.

Once you can read the behavior, these encounters stop feeling like attacks and start looking like what they actually are: a healthy native ecosystem doing its thing, loudly, right outside the front door.

Once you learn to read those signals, planting for specific pollinator groups becomes easy. Here, we’ll teach you all you need to know to join the conversation!

Pollination Syndromes: How Plants Advertise to Pollinators

Not all plants are pollinated by animals, but about 90% of flowering plants have evolved to attract animal pollinators specifically. It benefits a plant species to focus on one pollinator or a group of pollinators. If all flowers shared the same pollinators, there’s a good chance a lot of pollen will be wasted as the animals visit every other flower species around.

Botanists call these signal patterns ‘pollination syndromes’: predictable traits that reveal which pollinator the flower is courting. Four of these traits do the most talking:

1. Shape: Tube length, opening angle, whether there is space to land
2. Color: Whatever is brightest in the target pollinator’s spectral vision
3. Scent: Sweet, musky fermented, or absent entirely
4. Timing: Day or night openings, seasonal peak

These rules aren’t ironclad (and plenty of flowers are visited by multiple pollinators), but they’re good indicators for who’s meant to show up. Here’s how these traits sort among six groups of pollinators.

Flowers that Attract Bees

Bees are the workhorses of pollination, and was the first species group to evolve as pollination specialists. Flowers built for them tend to be generous with nectar and easy to use.

• Shape: open bowls, landing platforms, or short tubes they can wedge into
• Color: yellow, blue, and purple
• Scent: fresh, sweet, pleasant, strong floral perfumes
• Timing: warm daytime hours (bees turn sluggish below about 55°F, so temperature matters)

Native examples: penstemon, goldenrod, sunflower, and baby blue eyes

Flowers that Attract Butterflies

Butterflies forage mostly by sight and can’t hover, so they need flashy flowers that double as a landing strip. Many flowers built for butterflies also end up attracting some bees.

• Shape: flat, clustered flowers that act as a runway, or long narrow tubes that match a coiled proboscis
• Color: bold pinks, oranges, and purples (butterflies can see muted reds that most bees miss!)
• Scent: faint to mild; showy color is more important
• Timing: daytime in full sun, since most butterflies need to bask before they can fly well

Native examples: Joe-pye weed, butterfly weed, coneflower, and blazing star

Flowers that Attract Moths

When the bees clock out, the moths clock in. In fact, moths evolved from butterflies and took the night shift to take advantage of nectar resources when butterflies aren’t active. Color is far less important than scent for night foragers.

• Shape: long narrow tubes for hovering hawkmoths; open dishes for smaller settling moths
• Color: white, pale pink, or dull yellow (colors that hold light at dusk and catch moonlight)
• Scent: strong and sweet, often released only after dark
• Timing: open or fragrant at dusk and through the night, with many closing by morning

Native examples: phlox, yucca, wild tobacco, and evening primrose

Flowers that Attract Hummingbirds

Hummingbirds, like many birds, have an underdeveloped sense of smell, but unlike most of our other pollinators, they can see red. Hummingbirds are also burn fuel very fast, so their flowers are bright, sugar-rich, and built to keep insects out.

• Shape: long narrow tubes, often tilted down or outward, that exclude most insects
• Color: bright red, orange, and hot pink (birds see red; most insect competitors don’t)
• Scent: little to none
• Timing: daytime, especially mornings and late afternoons when hummingbirds are most active, with nectar refilled often

Native examples: cardinal flower, wax currant, trumpet vine, trumpet honeysuckle

Flowers that Attract Bats

In the American Southwest and the tropics, nectar-feeding bats pollinate many important plants—including the agave behind your margarita! Because bats are much larger than other pollinators, flowers signaling for bats must provide a large amount of dilute nectar.

• Shape: large, robust, bowl- or bell-shaped flowers; many must be sturdy enough for a bat to rest, but some bats hover
• Color: pale white, green, or purple (because bats navigate with echolocation rather than sight, color barely matters)
• Scent: strong, musky, fermented, sometimes sulfurous
• Timing: open at night, often for a single night

Native examples: agave, saguaro, organ pipe cactus, and desert willow

Flowers that Attract Carrion Flies

Not every pollinator wants a sweet reward. Some flowers court carrion flies by impersonating exactly what flies love—rot. These flowers do not reward their pollinators with nectar. They don’t even produce nectar!

• Shape: deep, trap-like flowers that mimic carrion or dung
• Color: dull maroon, brown, mottled green, or speckled to mimic corpses and rot
• Scent: strongly putrid, like rotting meat or feces
• Timing: day or night, depending on species; flies stay active in cool, cloudy weather

Native examples: pawpaw, skunk cabbage, wild ginger, and red trillium

A Pollinator-Plant Cheat Sheet

Use this cheat sheet to learn the language of plants and pollinators!

Invite Pollinators to Your Garden

You don’t need to court every pollinator on this list (and depending on where you live, you couldn’t). The point is to plant with intention: choose natives that match the pollinators already in your region, and aim for a range of colors, shapes, and bloom times so something is always advertising!

Check out NWF’s Native Plant Finder to see which native plants support the most butterflies and moths where you live!

We asked you to share your gardens with us, and you didn’t disappoint! Check out these stories and photos from wildlife gardeners across the country.

A Michigan Oasis

“Our yard has been a slow and deliberate change to create an ecofriendly environment for all of nature.  Even small spaces can have a big impact on helping our native species to survive!  The payback is not only the enjoyment of watching the wildlife but also feeling like we are helping to protect plants and animals in these challenging times. As I write this a pair of Mallard ducks just flew in.”

– Gaye

Californian Pollinator Paradise

“I knew I wanted my small patio and garden area filled with California native plants right when I purchased my home. I already knew they were water efficient and wanted to see local wildlife visit.

“I slowly began replacing some of the decorative and invasive plants with natives. I’ve added California Wild rose, poppy, fire sage, indigo sage, lavender, Mexican Elderberry, prickly pear cactus and native lilac. I’ve slowly landscaped for rain collection, using natural stones and other organic materials such as logs, minimizing runoff, flooding and erosion.

“The plants thrive, giving seasonal blooms, but need very little care. Although this has been a five-year ongoing process, I saw healthier soil and increased pollinator presence within the first year. Since then, I’ve been greeted by ever-more diversity in bugs and birds, such as the California bumble bee and the Western Bluebird! This is now my fourth year hosting monarchs, and they just keep coming back, just as the milkweed does.

“I am an important part of my ecosystem, wherever I live. I want my garden to remind me every day. It is also nice that I’m conserving water and saving money, of course.”

– Shara

A Pennsylvania Prairie

“My garden was the reason we purchased our home in 2021. We tell folks we bought a garden and a house came with it! The previous owner had created a garden with many native and medicinally useful plants, and we have built upon those themes since.

“We have practiced a ‘laissez-faire’ approach, allowing more native volunteer plants to grow. We have learned so much by doing this, that we are now expanding our native beds and adding permaculture practices.”

– Barbara

Arizona Desert Garden

“I bought an old home that was neglected in the downtown area of Phoenix. The house only takes up 10% of the property but the property was just a dirt lot when we moved in. Our goal is to bring structure, function, and biodiversity to the place while incorporating natives, with a few exceptions. Not having a lot of money, our garden has progressed from cuttings, seeds and unwanted seedlings. To date we have over 30 species of plants represented, have registered over 40 bird species and the lizard abundance has shot up. Most importantly, we have identified dozens of pollinators that visit in the spring blooms.

“As a wildlife biologist, I know the inherent value of biodiversity to our own health, both physical and mental. But more importantly we need to promote wildlife habitat in urban settings as larger wildlife habitats continue to decrease.”

– Adam

Get Your Garden Certified and Share Your Story!

You can make a difference in your own outdoor space starting today. Even small spaces like balconies and courtyards can have a huge impact.

Get your garden recognized as a Certified Wildlife Habitat here and share your story with us!

Find a Public Garden that is a Certified Wildlife Habitat

There is a long history of the National Wildlife Federation recognizing public gardens for their wildlife friendly actions. Even as far back as 2003, the U.S. Botanic Garden was named the 100,000^th Certified Wildlife Habitat.

Today, roughly 200 public gardens nationwide are recognized as Certified Wildlife Habitats. You can visit one in your region to get inspiration for your own wildlife garden. See how these gardens use native species, water features, and landscaping to support wildlife and make their space enjoyable for people too.

Find a Certified Wildlife Habitat public garden near you.

Garden Highlight: The Botanical Garden of the Ozarks, AK

“The Botanical Garden of the Ozarks is proud to be a Certified Wildlife Habitat, with a strong focus on native plants and pollinator education. Our dedicated Ozark native plant garden showcases species that support local ecosystems and provides a model for visitors looking to incorporate natives at home.

We also partner with organizations such as White River Nursery and the Northwest Arkansas Master Naturalists to offer educational programming and seasonal native plant sales.

Pollinator conservation is a core part of our work. In partnership with the Northwest Arkansas Beekeepers Association, we maintain an on-site apiary and provide educational opportunities focused on the importance of bees and other pollinators.”

– Ashley Wardlow, Executive Director at The Botanical Garden of the Ozarks

Garden Highlight: Cape Fear Botanical Garden, NC

“Cape Fear Botanical Garden (Fayetteville, North Carolina) supports a variety of native plants and pollinator species throughout key areas of the Garden, including the Butterfly Stroll, Pond Lawn, and Wellons Arbor.

These connected spaces create an expanded habitat where pollinators can feed, nest, and rest, contributing to a healthier local ecosystem. 

These plantings also support a wider range of wildlife, including birds, beneficial insects, and other native species that rely on these habitats for food and shelter.

Beyond these cultivated areas, the Garden’s wooded trails provide important habitat for larger mammals that often go unseen within the city.

While visitors may occasionally spot white-tailed deer, the Garden supports a broader range of species, reinforcing its role as a meaningful urban refuge for wildlife.

By designing and preserving these varied spaces, we not only support wildlife activity but also make it visible and accessible to our guests. Visitors are able to observe these interactions in real time, deepening their understanding of the essential role native plants and habitats play in sustaining both pollinators and the broader ecosystem.”

– Beth Hess, Marketing Consultant at Cape Fear Botanical Garden

Garden Highlight: Smithsonian Gardens

The Smithsonian Gardens was the 81st public garden to get recognized as a Certified Wildlife Habitat® back in 2020.

“Each Smithsonian Garden adeptly weaves the theme of specific museums to the natural history and elements of the habitat gardens on their grounds.  Recent reports of the loss of 3 billion birds across North America since 1970 make exhibits like the National Museum of Natural History’s Urban Bird Habitat essential.

The exhibit highlights the diversity of spaces where birds live and raise their young through large-scale realistic nests. The African American Museum’s Live Oak grove tells the story of the shelter and gathering place these trees provided in the African American journey to freedom and community building.

The story then connects the sheltering theme to how oak trees provide multitudes of insects, birds, and other wildlife with a place of cover. For example, an oak tree is a host for over 500 insect species.”

– Mary Phillips, National Wildlife Federation

Learn more about this garden here!

Go Public Gardens!

Go Public Gardens is a year-round initiative led by The American Public Gardens Association to encourage the public to visit, value, and volunteer at public gardens.

With so many public gardens that are Certified Wildlife Habitats, we hope you take the time to visit one near you.

We need to celebrate the communities and all generations throughout the monarch flyway that are contributing to this success, and at the same time, we need to take stock of what is working and continue with our efforts to recover the monarch butterfly whose future remains uncertain. 7.24 acres is indeed a success compared to the previous season, but the goal for the overwintering population established in 2015 is 15 acres.

One thing we can be certain contributes to the recovery of the monarch butterfly are the many small native plant habitats that jewel the landscape. These smaller gardens are essential habitat that help connect to larger native plant spaces, creating safe intervals for the monarch butterfly to fly between areas of rest and nourishment during their long migration.

Schools as Hubs for Monarch Education and Outreach

As hubs of their community, schools can play a vital role in connecting urban centers to larger swaths of habitat. When schools create gardens for the monarch butterfly with native milkweed and nectar plants, they are not only creating a safe space for monarchs to refuel and lay their eggs in the spring, but they also often create a ripple effect of habitat education, replication, and stewardship into their surrounding community.

Schools serve as the place community members and volunteers can engage to learn and take action, whether helping to build and maintain the gardens or learning from the students and discovering free resources. They are also the place community members can give back by sharing their knowledge.

Monarch Heroes Schools

As part of Monarch Heroes 10^th Anniversary Celebration, we lift up a handful of the schools who are serving as hubs for monarch butterfly recovery in their communities. Below are some stories from across Texas of how Monarch Heroes gardens have grown beyond school grounds.

Teachers from Woodlawn Academy (San Antonio) and Pattersen Elementary (Houston) take gardening from school to home and build neighborhood and family connections in the process.

Lucia Francese, Teacher, Woodlawn Academy, San Antonio

Monarch Heroes has not only changed my way of teaching but my way of living. I am much more conscious of native plants. I have started growing native plants on my balcony. I have convinced friends to plant native plants in their yards, and this spring on my drive from San Antonio to Houston, I called my mom to describe in detail all the native wildflowers blooming along the highways. This program helped me take my interest in conservation to a true passion and has given me the tools to not only take personal action, but to inspire others to take action as well.

Maria Karen Locke, Teacher, Pattersen Elementary, Houston

Inspired and motivated by the Monarch Heroes garden at our school, I planted a monarch habitat garden at my home. I included milkweed and nectar-rich flowers to support monarch butterflies and other pollinators throughout their life cycle. I continue to expand my garden and share what I’ve learned with my family, neighbors and community. I have shared its purpose with my co-teachers, adminstrators, students and families, discussed my personal experience creating a home habitat, and encouraged participation in planting and caring for the garden.

Students and families have also been inspired to take action at home by reviving their existing gardens with native plants or by starting small pollinator-friendly gardens, and planting milkweed to support monarch butterflies. Many have also inquired about which pollinator plants to use and where to get them. So, we know they are taking it seriously!

School garden teams at Ann Richards Middle School (Austin), Baker Montessori (Houston), and Diamond Hill Elementary (Fort Worth) build community connections and support for gardens through spreading neighborhood gardens and the value of habitat stewardship.

Carey Warner, Teacher, Ann Richards Middle School, Austin, TX

Through a year-long senior project on geriatric depression, students at Ann Richards Middle School explored practical ways to support emotional well-being in adults over 65. Their research revealed that regular exposure to nature can significantly improve mood and help reduce symptoms of depression. Inspired by these findings, the students partnered with the South Austin Senior Activity Center to create a native plant monarch garden.

Now certified by the National Wildlife Federation, the garden serves as a vital habitat for monarch butterflies, offering food and shelter during their migration. But its impact goes beyond environmental benefits. The garden has become a shared community space where seniors can connect, contribute, and find creative inspiration. Whether tending to the plants or using the space for art, participants often experience a renewed sense of purpose and belonging—key factors in reducing loneliness.

Feedback from the community has been overwhelmingly positive. In a survey conducted by the students, every respondent at the Activity Center said the monarch garden brought them joy, and all expressed interest in learning more about it and seeing it expand.

Simone Roemhild, Teacher, Baker Montessori, Houston, TX

Learning about native plant species has shaped our decision processes about what to plant throughout our campus. As neighbors and by-passers notice us creating habitat, they get curious. We now have a regular group of families taking care of the Spark-Park, and we have had several parents lead planting events in collaboration with Trees for Houston. As we establish more “planted islands” at the perimeter of our school, neighbors are starting to feel comfortable and encouraged to plant herbs, native flowers and grasses. Slowly but surely, we are enticing humans to start connecting and stewarding these little islands of public lands in the heart of H-Town (Houston).

Tina Culp-McDonald, Teacher Diamond Hill Elementary, Fort Worth, TX

At our Earth Day celebration, several parents shared with me that their children are more aware of the nature around them and have even scolded a parent or two for being careless with plants and/or insects at home. We made seed balls and students and parents were able to drop them in areas of the neighborhood that could use some brightening up. One parent said her daughter now wants to make a pollinator space in the backyard and had asked mom if they could get a tree trimmed so there would be more light.

Whether community members volunteer to create monarch gardens, attend student led campus community forums or volunteer to share their knowledge with students, the ripple effect and impact on monarch conservation is real.

A teacher from Cunningham Elementary (Austin) switches career paths to found a non-profit, PEAS, and support school gardens across a city.

Lauren Maples, Founder and Executive Director of PEAS, Austin, TX (Former teacher Cunningham Elementary, Austin)

Building upon my experience as a teacher at Cunningham Elementary, at PEAS (Partners in Education, Agriculture, and Sustainability), we have extended the impact of the Monarch Heroes program by incorporating pollinator education into our broader curriculum and supporting other schools in developing and enhancing their own pollinator gardens. The lessons and practices rooted in the Monarch Heroes program now reach additional educators, students, and communities beyond a single campus.

Students often take on the role of educators within their own households. They encourage their families to avoid pesticide use and help them understand how even small actions can support pollinators. Some families extend their involvement into the broader community by tending the school gardens and advocating for pollinator-friendly landscaping in shared spaces. These actions demonstrate how the Monarch Heroes program helps cultivate not only knowledge but a sense of responsibility that carries beyond the classroom and into the community.

Resources

• To learn more about the Monarch Heroes program visit our website.
• To help your students advocate for the Monarch butterfly in their city, consider having them write a letter to their mayor. A template letter is available here.
• Come and Celebrate 10 years of Monarch Recovery with the Monarch Heroes Program at our spring student showcases in May: Austin, San Antonio and Houston.