Get smart about an eco-friendly yard with Alina Hedman

Alina Hedman is the urban conservation education coordinator with the Minnehaha Conservation District. She sat down with Sioux Falls Simplified to talk about spring yard work and how to support pollinators in your own back yard.

Answers are edited for length and clarity.

Let’s start with getting to know you. How did you “get smart” about conservation? What in your background prepared you for your job today?

I grew up in Wisconsin, which has a heavy curriculum about conservation in schools – plus, I come from a family that's pretty conservation-minded. In college, I started off with planning to become a chemistry teacher, then pivoted, and I actually have an art degree.

My position now is more based on being an educator, combining my passion for education and my passion for conservation. I've always had an interest in urban conservation after taking classes in college.

• I don't think any person goes into a position knowing everything, so it's really just listening to the people who have more expertise than you.

We’re all about simplicity here. Can you describe an environmentally or pollinator-friendly yard in 10 words or fewer?

Lively native cover with a variety of blooming plants.

It’s the time of year where folks are planting, planning their gardens, clearing out debris from over the winter and generally in a yard-work mood. Can you offer any suggestions for folks who want a yard that’s friendly to pollinators and to the environment?

Theres so many spectrums about how you can go about being pollinator-friendly.

• It doesn't mean you have to tear up your entire yard. It could be something as simple as, I’m going to – instead of buying my traditional pants at the nursery – see if they have some native plants and incorporate them in.

Something very simple they could do is just be like, I'm going to go low-pesticide this year, and I'm going to look at more native ways I can handle pest management.

It could be learning about some of the nesting stuff – maybe leaving a small area where you don't clear out just yet.

• A lot of bees do ground nesting. You could just create a little insect haven in your yard. If you have an old stump, leave it – bugs like that.

Your average person might not be like, I can tear up my whole yard, and I’m cool with it being long grass. But you can make a pollinator garden or integrated stuff into your personal garden – there's ways to do it.

What do you hear as a common misconception or objection folks have when it comes to an environmentally sustainable, or pollinator-friendly yard?

The biggest common misconception is that a pollinator yard is messy and unkempt. You don't have to do that. You can try to do it in more of a landscaping feature way.

• There are a lot of zoning rules to be aware of – I highly recommend researching that before you plant anything because depending on where you live that can be the biggest hurdle as well.

Why is it important that our individual yards are accommodating to pollinators? Does my little garden really matter?

That kind of goes into why you should care about anything – if everyone has the mentality of, "why should I care?" then nothing happens.

One of the challenges (for pollinators) is a lack of resting areas. Having a pollinator area is critical for insects as they're trying to grow.

• There could be large expanses where they don't have that, and if they don't have a spot where they can stop, they're gonna get hit by a car or freeze or something's going to happen to them.

If you have your pollinator area contributing to one, two, three, however many of them have that (place to rest) – be the reason why they make it.

• A lot of native pollinators don't benefit from non-native plants as much.
• If you are really wanting to be a friend to pollinators make sure you’re utilizing those native plants.

How do I know if something is a native plant?

You can go onto plant websites. There's a lot of very good tools on the internet where you can look at plants native to South Dakota.

You also want to look at the scientific name.

• I cannot tell you how often you'll go to a nursery and see purple coneflowers, for instance, and see that's not the natie one because they're cultivars of the native one. Being aware of what the scientific name is for those (native) plants can help.

If you could snap your fingers and add one thing to each yard in Sioux Falls, what would it be and why?

In regards to pollinators, it would literally just be a very small pollinator patch. If there could be one little area of pollinator cover in everybody's yard, I think people would be amazed at what a difference that could make.

Yes, you want to be a friend to the pollinators, but pollinators are a friend to you.

• There is increasing data that the quality/quantity that you produce out of a garden increases with pollinator richness.

So, having them more available around where you’re planting your food will improve the garden's overall health.

Anything else folks should consider as they’re planning out their yards? 

I know people don't like weeds. People spray weeds, and I get that, but if you’re going to do that, please wear the proper protective gear.

• It is so concerning when I see someone spraying those solutions, and they're just out there in shorts, t-shirt, nothing on their hands.

The other thing would be – just in case people are wondering what some good flowers – I would say when you're planting be thoughtful of what the bloom periods are so that you have continuous cover throughout the year.

• There are three native coneflowers that grow around here – prairie, purple and yellow, and if you were to plant them all, they're all in different bloom periods.
• Another one that's really good is milkweed, but also milkweed spreads. One way to plant that is to use swamp milkweed. There's a seed pod on top that you can just cut, and you won't see it spreading as wildly. It's not as aggressive.