Minnesota Wildflowers

U of Minnesota - Near Civil and Mineral Engineering Building - N. Carlson

The University of Minnesota and regional park boards continue efforts to bring back native prairie grasses and flowers. The efforts appear to be successful based on the colorful flowers in the landscape and the wide variety of insect pollinators.

The spaces with the native grass also do not require weekly mowing, extensive watering and herbicides to keep the area free of weeds.

Male monarch butterfly in wildflowers by TCF Bank Stadium - N. Carlson

Efforts to bring back the population of monarch butterflies need more than milkweeds for the caterpillars.  The butterflies need nectar for energy and these flowering plants also need to be planted in the area.

Beetle and bee on wildflower at Silverwood Park in St. Anthony - click to enlarge - N. Carlson

Honeybee on flower at the St. Paul Campus of the U of Minnesota - N. Carlson

Flowers also provide an excellent habitat for bees. At one planting outside McNamara Alumni Center five different types of bees were busy extracting nectar from the flowers.  I used some of these images in this book published in December of 2018. 

The paperback version of Fireworks, Flowers, Forests, and the Minnesota State Fair: Image Reflections from Minnesota is available from Amazon.  There is also a kindle version of Fireworks, Flowers, Forests, and the Minnesota State Fair: Image Reflections from Minnesota that is best viewed from a portrait orientation.

The video below uses some of the wildflower images from this the book.

Minnesota Wildflowers - Wildflowers Music by Tom Petty - 3 minutes14 seconds