 Hello everybody hear me, okay. Yes. All right. We're gonna go ahead and get started. My name is Devon Smith I am an adult services librarian at the Longmont Public Library been there for about 10 years. This is my favorite job ever I love it. Thanks for coming tonight I am excited to have mr. Don Murray here with people and pollinators to talk about Pollinators and probably a little bit of people too. Yeah, so if anybody is a member of the friends of the library or knows Anybody we would like to thank them especially because without their funding we could not put on programs like this So nobody wants to hear me talk anymore. I will give it over to Don. Thanks. All right. Thank you. Can you hear me? Okay? Okay Well, welcome. Thanks for coming out Thanks to the library for hosting this Again, my name is Don Murray If you have any questions you can write down my email address there and and contact me afterwards I'm gonna talk tonight I was reading what they had on the library website This is well I'm going to tell you how to create a pollinator habitat and I'm going to do some of that but I'm going to talk about Some policy issues and some things that what peep hand does so peep hand is the people and pollinators action network and So I'll go through a little bit of that and then we'll go over some things about pollinators in general and how you can help them and then we can open it for questions and answers and Also in the back there is Lyanna Street. She's our she's my buddy in all things peep hand So I'm going to talk a little bit about peep hand our vision admission our approach to protecting pollinators because we are the people in pollinators action network and What the problems pollinators face are and what we can do is people to help the pollinators and Then what you can do in your yard So peep hand is a Colorado based organization And we work to protect pollinators and people by advocating for strong policy at the state left state and local government level increasing habitat and improving the Places that pollinators can live and improving land management so that less pesticides are used less poison is used and we're Taking care of the health of the planet We work at grassroots levels. We do education and a lot of outreach Lyanna and I are always somewhere Tabling with events with all the handouts that we have and you're welcome to pick those up And we work with different organizations to help the pollinators in Colorado So again our approach Education community events like this we do webinars There's one coming up next week, which I'll have in the presentation later on we have fundraisers and We have an educational summit In the fall. There's a pollinator summit statewide things usually down at the Botanical Gardens. It's done in Junction with butterfly pavilion We do community mobilization really trying to Get people out and involved Working at the tabling experiences and we have partnerships with other Organizations and then there's an arm of peepan that does policy action They do a lot of work with the legislature. We have a lobbyist to help move things through the legislature, which I'm just Starting to learn about and it's like they always say, you know, it's like making sausage You don't really want to see how things get passed But we do that through building coalitions with other groups who also are on board for Making advancing things like clean energy clean water clean environment So let's talk about pollinators. I Do a thing every summer with kids In the first question I ask is what's a pollinator? What's a pollinator? Great And they do and and why do they do that? What does that do for the plants? When does a pollinator? What is what is the moving of pollen from one plant to another getcha? fertilization okay, so Shortly before we know it all the fruit trees are going to be in bloom and they're gonna be all these flowers and something needs to fertilize those flowers that they can turn into cherries and apples and Peaches that was the thing I just planted peach trees and I'm waiting for one blossom so we eat pollinators and Pollinators come in all different Shapes and sizes. It's not just bees. It's moths butterflies Beetles hummingbirds Flies even houseflies are pollinators which when I learned that it's like well, that's pretty cool And I've actually seen houseflies on my dill plants pollinating the dill but they're critical to maintaining a healthy thriving ecosystem and They account for about a third of our diet so a third of the crops that we have in the United States are pollinated by or need pollination of some kind and that's about 20 to 30 billion dollars annually of Agriculture that is dependent on pollinators And but 80% of flowering plants in the world need pollinators to survive because if you don't if they don't get pollinated You don't get a new seed and then you don't get a new plant so the most popular pollinator that people know about our honey bees. I'm a beekeeper and They originally from Europe, they're called the European honey bee and they're non-native to America They came over and the 1600s. I think it's about 1622 that they landed in Virginia and They are prolific I'll say and so they have spread from coasts from the east coast to the west coast in the matter of a few hundred years and They are considered a managed livestock Species and Every year the big news is they are shipped from all over the country out to California to pollinate the almond crops California produces 80% of the world's almonds if there weren't honey bees there wouldn't be almonds and So they're very important species for our agriculture and after the almonds they go up to Oregon To pollinate the blueberries then they go some of them go back to pollinate the oranges in Florida And they just get spread back across the country and then next year in December. They all get shipped back to California but That's only one pollinator another poll another set of pollinators are native bees so in Colorado It says nine hundred anybody want to guess how many we actually have 950 okay, so there's about nine hundred and fifty different species of bees of native bees in Colorado And in all of North America, I think there's only like 1500 So we have a big chunk of native bees in Colorado itself and They come in all shapes and sizes you'll see I have a bee block in the back They come from you know, they nest in holes that are about in a half-inch in diameter to something that's you know Like a sixteenth of an inch in diameter They're bumble bees squash bees digger bees Leaf cutter bees they're all Just these native bees and the thing about the native bees is they've evolved with the Plants in Colorado So there are some plants in Colorado that can only be pollinated by a specific Native bee because the shape of the flower only allows that one bee to get in there So you can't have a honey bee pollinating this little tiny Hissa plant So they they're they're very important for our native plants And why do we need what's good about native plants in Colorado? Well, they're used to our weather Okay, so the lupins, you know, they might get snowed on in May. They still come back the The yuccas all these different flowering plants that we have in Colorado are adapted to our season So if you want to grow something that you don't have to take care of that much grow native plants because they do well in this climate but they're in trouble and And Both the honey bees it's not just the honey bees you've heard about colony collapse disorder and and different things and the maybe the Varroa might But it's also the native bees and it's a multifaceted thing of why there are problems Big problem is pesticides and I'll talk about that in a bit. There are parasites like the Varroa might on the honey bee There's diseases the formed wing virus and it spreads from species to species So we're seeing in bumblebees some of the same parasites in the same diseases that we see in honey bees habitat loss we build housings and where the houses Where do the houses go they go in the fields that used to have wildflowers and we used to be forage for the pollinators And then climate change as the climate changes things You know they have to adapt if they can if not they might move they might move higher But maybe the flowers won't move higher. So that's an it that's an issue for them to and pollinator health Is related to human health again if the pollinators decline we're going to lose some food sources As you said there some things are wind pollinators, but most of the things that are went are wood pollinated our Grasses, so we'd have popcorn we have oatmeal We'd have some rice we'd have some wheat But that's a pretty bland diet we wouldn't have luscious peaches and oranges and watermelons and things like that so In terms of pesticides When I talk about pesticides I'm talking about Anything that kills what we consider a pest herbicides insecticides fungicides for denticides and They became more in use after World War two so after World War two the All these chemical companies had these nice chemicals that they would use for like Chemical warfare, you know that they did and it's like well, what are we going to do with these now? Well, I know we can use these on our lawns. We can use these to kill other Insects we can use these to kill all kinds of things well that has just exploded and You know the older of us in the crowd remember DDT in the 60s and that was sprayed all over and then they go Oh, well, you know, it's not good for the bald eagles. It's really not good for us either But these pesticides are everywhere the It's used a lot in agriculture But What happens is they're used to target a specific pest let's say the corn borer worm, right? What happens is they also Kill off the good the beneficial bugs because there are a lot of beneficial bugs most bugs are beneficial most weeds are beneficial and They have this Side effect of killing the beneficial bugs if you want to help the ecosystem you want the beneficial Bugs and weeds to outcompete the bad bugs and bees so But over use of pesticides we end up killing everything There's just an article today I saw there are a bunch of Organophosphates, I think they're called that the FDA just put some restrictions on and these have been used in for years One of them is diazenon. I remember my dad used to sprinkle like diazenon all over our property when I was a kid And they just realized oh, well, you know it causes cancer in people. So maybe we better restrict how it's used There's another thing. There's an article They're heard on the radio yesterday about PFAS. I can't tell you what that stands for but These are chemicals that were developed in the 30s and have been used widely and now all of a sudden they're going Well, maybe that's not a good idea. A lot of pesticides have only been conditionally Approved so and the research that approved that they used to approve them is from the chemical companies So there's a chemical company going on. Oh, this you shouldn't use this Well, no, they're going to find science. They're going to find research that they supports the use and production and money-making of those pesticides and What happens over time is they never get totally vetted and then 30 40 years later we find out that they're cancer-causing chemicals so What you want to produce is you don't want to kill things you want to encourage the things that are Good to out-compete and make a healthy ecosystem That's my rant on pesticides I love this one. It's like scientists detective 70% clients like I got I don't live in an ecosystem and the problem is is well, well Industrial chemicals and or industrial agriculture using chemicals is a big issue the In in homeowners are a big problem, too Yeah, you go down to the store you buy some Roundup to kill a weed. Well that roundup goes into the soil and it kills the things that are in the soil, too and now we're finding out that there's a link between glycophate glycophate and cancer in humans but We are all in one big ecosystem and so we need to make a healthy ecosystem to Benefit us and the pollinators Tom T. Bold was started the Boulder County beekeepers. He was a mentor of mine and in the early 2000s he Started looking at the use of systemic pesticides. So a systemic pesticide is Pesticide that's put on a plant and it's usually put on the seed of a plant like a corn seed And then every cell of that plant has that pesticide in it So on a bee even though corn is wind pollinated The bees use the pollen so when a bee goes to get the pollen off of that plant it's got poison in it and if you have 20,000 honey bees coming back to a hive bringing in a sublethal dose of this poison then The poison just accumulates it accumulates in the wax and accumulates in the hive and the hive dies I used to have a hive out in Niawatt and when they put down the seed corn and it came out of winter It was doing great put down the seed corn bees went over and they look at the dust And they think it's pollen and they brought it back to the hive and I open up the hive and they're all these bees on the Bottom just dying so I don't keep bees up in Niawatt anymore So you know the there are these side effects and if you go to a cornfield in the middle of the country It's a it's Sterile the only thing that's growing is corn. There are no bugs There are no And they have to keep putting more fertilizer onto this into the soil because they're killing all the good things They're in the soil, so I guess I didn't finish my rant, but Tom anyway, I'm Joined a lawsuit against the EPA to fight particularly these systemic pesticides that were conditionally approved and Try to get the EPA to Unapproved them problem is it's a money-making machine and a lot of people in the EPA work used to work for the chemical companies So it's a again. It's like the whole making sausage thing. It's it's tough to change All right, let's go on. So Again in terms of our habitat if you look at that nice green lawn on the upper left there That's a food desert for pollinators. There's nothing there. They can eat grass. They there's no food and grass for them Because no dandelions in there. I long would have lots of dandelions in it And then we spray all those chemicals to kill bugs to kill everything in these Fields and even though I'm ranting on pesticides, which I believe is one of the biggest issues for pollinators There are a lot of complex things again. We need to eat and big ag is the biggest thing that keeps us With food, but we can do a lot together and that's kind of what peepan does This is where we try and Protect pollinators So we do it through government action As I said, we and some of the things that we've done I'll talk about some of these and more in a little bit but we work with the legislature working with the legislature on the pesticide application Applicators act which is going to be sunset what it should be renewed it should be Continued and it should be strengthened to make sure that people when they apply pesticides are doing it legally and With minimal impact on the environment The governor's office both Hickenlooper and polis Declared June to be pollinator month. We we work with them on that And then in local areas, I'll talk about that in a minute So again, some of the things that we have I-76 a section of I-76 was designated as a pollinator highway and we worked with Colorado Department of Transportation to Have them stop using Pesticides along the stretch of the highway and we went out and planted flowers along that section of the highway What CDOT is doing something along the diagonal if you've driven up and down the diagonal last couple of years You've seen these like racetracks We're not sure what they're doing because they went off and did that by themselves But it was something that we really pushed for Pollinator license plate Talk about that a minute and then doing these pollinator resolutions and creating pollinator safe communities So here's the license plate. We have an example in the back You can get one of these for your car. I just got one on my truck And I'm gonna get one on my car soon You can do this give a donation to pee pan say where from I think the minimum is 25 But you can donate more if you want And then you get a little number and then you take that to DMV and you can get this nice little pollinator plate and then you know, you have to pay for whatever the extra fee is for a Specialized plate And I actually got Words online so then it's More but if you just get this the twenty five dollar Be to pee pan is a one-time fee. You don't have to do that every year last year. We got a We tried to get a bunch of other stuff done Protecting schools from pesticides things like that But the pesticide Industry is very power has a very powerful lobby one of the things that came out of this was the General Assembly Approved a pollinator study a native pollinator study which just starting to get underway just to Document what how many pollinators do we have? What's the what's the health of these populations? And so this is an effort that's going on now Again with local action I Was just telling Devin that the last time I think I was in this Room was we were pushing the city of Longmont to Create a pollinator safe resolution to stop using systemic pesticides on the public lands And we got that done in May of 2017, but in Boulder County The city of Boulder Boulder County City of Lafayette in Longmont of all created pollinators safe resolutions to Protect pollinators Again through community organizing we have these local pee pan chapters land and I head up the Boulder County chapter There's one in Denver. There's one in northern Colorado up in Fort Collins And we're trying to expand across the state to get other groups to organize to Help protect pollinators We have webinars. I'll talk about some of that in the future We have native plant and seed swaps and the annual pollinator summit I talked about and We work with different partners These are other groups that have similar goals protecting the environment protecting ecosystems and For example the last one Audubon Rockies. Well, I had an eye for many years before the pandemic would Go to their events and talk about pollinators while they would talk about how you can make your yard safe for be birds So in the end it comes down to if we want to protect these pollinators if we want to have these Healthy ecosystems they need safe and abundant forage and a lot of the forage around has been taken over by housing developments and We can vote and then those housing developments just put in turf grass, which doesn't help the pollinators and But there are things you can do So I'll go through this list on the side I'll just point out that we have this is our the p-pan Colorado pollinator habitat. We have some of the signs their donations suggested donation ten dollars, but Donate more if you want to get your own little sign. I've got one in my front yard So so the first thing is you can do is plant native Habitat so I talked about Having native plants and why native plants are good. They're not only good for the pollinators, but they're easier to care for than Exotic plants or plants that aren't native We have a handout in the back for low water Native plants for pollinators. P-pan is actually developing a new list It'll be up on our website at some point soon, but this one from CSU and Other groups has a really nice thing you want to plant Plants that will bloom all year so you want some that plant that'll bloom in the spring Some in early summer some in late summer and some in the fall because they need food all through that Time and especially the native pollinators You know, they're not like honeybees. They don't store up honey to get them through the winter They go out they get some food They lay an egg they cap it off and then they die and then a new one pops out next spring But they need Forage they need food at the appropriate time when they're out orging Last year also the Colorado legislature passed a law for turf replacement providing grants for turf replacement. I don't know if you can see it there. I Don't know if these slides you can send me an email if you want that or just Google I just Google turf replacement program in Colorado and You can get to this page But starting this year there are Ways that you can remove your turf grass There's about turf grass is if you don't take really good care of it. It gets weeds and then People like pesticides to it, but it also sucks up a lot of water. I'm tired of having high water bills So when I moved into my house, I put in this beautiful lawn. This is before I was all pollinator-y I put in this beautiful lawn for my kids to play soccer on and now my kids are 25 and 31 and It's just a water sink So I've cut a big chunk out of it and my neighbor said me he's an old guy and he said Made all that money to put that lawn in why are you ripping it up? I said because it's costing me a lot of money now So You can get rid of some of your turf. There are these turf replacement programs Long month doesn't have anything yet, but we're working with local governments to help support grants so that they can Pay people to remove their lawns And then plant native habitat and said eliminate pesticide use My story of how I got into this was that I was standing under my neighbor's Crab apple tree is a beautiful tree and we were standing there is about 2006 and you couldn't hear a bee buzzing all these beautiful flowers and This is about the time that colony collapse was happening or was making news And I thought well, I got to do something. So the first thing I did is stopped using pesticides in my lawn and or in my yard at my whole yard and Eventually became a beekeeper and then I got involved with peepan but As in stuff still grows in my yard even without pesticides But that's a big thing you can do You know, I always think I always say that we're in a giant chemical experiment okay putting all these chemicals out into the Ecosystem they haven't been tested. There's no control Group it's saying. Oh, well, what happens if you don't use pesticides just like we'll just put pesticides everywhere It's put poisons everywhere and see what happens. We'll get rid of some bugs. We'll get rid of some weeds Might get rid of some people too in the end not they don't say that but Just stop using pesticides There are other options you can have if you don't like certain things the Money you donate to peepan for the pollinator license plate, we're putting into a fund and that's this protect our pollinators habitat fund and we just started that this year and Applications to do April 7th. I don't know all the details of that. They're on the website But it's a way that you can get money to create a pollinator habitat particularly at schools churches whatever if you want to Transform the landscape and make it say make a nice pollinator haven at that. That's a way you can get some money to help you do that Just some tips on creating pollinator habitat Leave the leaves this is the time of year where everybody gets outside starts cleaning up their yard Cleaning up all the leaves that have accumulated But what you're also cleaning up is like the overwintering bumblebee queens that are lying under the leaves So if you can leave the leaves, I know like some parts of my yard I leave the leaves some parts of my yard I clean up because I want to plant stuff But if you can leaves are not litter also if you have Stalks from last year's plants like cone flowers You can just step the tops off of that pretty soon the green will grow up You'll never see the stalks, but there are some you can see in the back there. Lyanna has some Sticks that have native bee nests in them and there might be native bees in there You can kind of look around for holes, but that's something you can So don't clean up until the temperatures are above 50 degrees average Don't mulch everything. I mean we love mulch because you know, it's a dry climate. We go put down mulch I'll keep the water in but it also keeps the ground nesting bees and 80% of native bees are ground nesting It keeps them from finding a home So try and leave some bare spots you can mulch some things and But just leave some bare soil where the native bees and it's fun to watch them They just kind of dig their little holes a little bigger bees dig their little holes And you see them popping out like that one there in the in the picture They need water That's my little bird bath there in my front yard But you don't want to just put out a bucket of water because it'll drown in it So lion in the back has a little plate you put a plate put a little rocks in there And then they can land on the rocks and take a nice sip of water You also get birds if you do it in a bird bath and they all sit there together happily And you can make them native pollinator house So I have one in the back and and we have the plan so please pick that up if you haven't already It's a nice and it has different size So it's just a block of wood you drill a bunch of holes in it and you just watch it so this came from a this particular design came from a project at CU called the bees needs and They would give you a bee block and They'd give you a little notebook and then every two weeks you'd write down what you saw in each one of the holes and I did it with my little six-year-old neighbor For like three different seasons and it was fun. It's fun thing to do with kids You know unfortunately, they ran out of funding so they don't do it but there if you just Google the bees needs they have a Nice website where you can see the different plugs that go into each of the holes and it's and some of the research They've done out of there. They used to be one out at Rogers Grove on one of the posts When you buy plants for your native garden Make sure they're not Laced with pesticides You know if you go to Home Depot most of those plants are laced with pesticides You can ask which ones aren't some of them are labeled like I know McGuckins and Boulder labels there But there are be safe this pollinear safe businesses. This is from the P pan website Under one of the menus you can get to this And in Longmont, I know flower bin they don't use it for the stuff that they grow But if you want to go get a big bush it comes from out of state and there are laws Regulating what could be moved across state lines and whether they have to be treated or not So just ask they're really good at the law at the at the flower bin In Boulder, there's Harlequin Gardens. None of their plants have been treated with pesticides and They have a lot of educational opportunities there, too If you have a lawn care service you can get organic lawn care But bet them make sure that they are Not spraying poison my neighbor across the street. He sprays poison all over every year However often they come and one day I was out in my yard and I was in my backyard and this guy comes back He was like you have a really nice yard here. We're here to spray your yard. I said what and I went out front And here's this guy. He's spraying my lawn or spraying my yard He killed my you didn't kill them, but all my pumpkin plants that I had grown out there. They all came out deformed It's not good stuff and then you know you got kids you got dogs playing on these things. It's bad It's just you're just making them swim in a toxic soup Sorry, I keep going on And then shop at pollinator friendly businesses again you can get a list of them here and then you know The other thing is it's great to do stuff in your own yard, but it takes more than just a pocket here pocket there We really need Pollinator highways where pollinators can safely migrate from up and down along safe spaces So and that takes effort at the local and the state level On our website. So this year. This is the 20 23 legislative efforts As I mentioned earlier the policy site applicators Act We have a statement on what we think should happen, but you can read the act you can read the recommendations from the state on that Another one is reducing barriers to water-wise landscaping in HOA's That one I think has a good chance of Think it's like 60% 60 maybe even 80% of homeowners in Colorado live in an HOA I live in Place where it was an HOA in 1967, but nobody informed So I can do what I wanted my hair, but you know, there are a lot of these HOA's have these Restrictions you can't put down anything but turf grass and again turf grass is Just a food desert You become involved with peep hand, okay You can volunteer We have a pollinator safe pledge That has I will not use pesticides and I'll try to plant for pollinators. That's all you got to do And if you say you we can put your location on a map. It goes up on a nice map and You can zoom in and see more and more people are when I first started I was like one of three of those little dots. That's that's only Seven years maybe that we've been doing this so You can you can do that and that's easy we have pledges in the back and Then you can get involved with us or you know get involved or not just necessarily get involved with us but come to our Events we do need volunteers If you know anything about gardening or even if you don't need it know anything about gardening It's always just nice to have another body there to help and answer questions if you can So next Thursday, there's a webinar from peep hand We're doing a lot by a zoom and this one is community science to conserve California's bumblebees there was one last month on Permaculture that I'd seen before There are lots of great webinars We're gonna have our next meeting lion and I are gonna have our next meeting on March 30th. We're still Might be at the library here, but I'm trying to find a place that's closer to boulders so that bolder people will come out And and join us but also be by a zoom. So if you haven't signed up for our newsletter Do so if you're interested in those because that's how well announce where and when on the 22nd of April with we do a lot with a sustainable resilient Longmont It's their Earth Day celebration will be at Centennial Park with our tabling. We're always Happy to have volunteers help us out with that But you can come down and talk to us more late May Early June we're gonna have a safe plant swap Down at Olin Farms, which is off of 95th Street and here in Longmont Where if you have plants just bring them on and that haven't been treated with pesticides And especially if they're native plants bring them on down pick up some new plants. It's great last year. It was a great event There's one in Boulder. I think on May 20th is a plant swap, but I think that's I don't know who runs that one Okay Sierra Club but that'll be announced on our newsletters and Then there are probably some more events in the summer But we'll be at the Nywat Honeybee Festival in August. It's usually like the fourth Saturday in August and then the Boulder Bee Festival down the Banshell Park in Boulder We're always there. That's a fun event for kids Who's a page and Jeff and Paige are there singing songs for the kids but there's all you know, Harlequin Gardens is there's all kinds of information on pollinators and Plants and you can get a lot of your questions answered there, too and I think that's all I have as far as my spiel so I want to thank you all for coming and Please protect pollinators and thanks to the library again I'll take any questions you have Yeah It is there's no honey that does not have poison in it Whether it's enough to affect humans or not that the research is out on that But yeah, all all honey has poison in it now There's also some beekeepers use Chemicals in their hive to fight us particularly the Varroa mite and That'll be in your honey, too. I don't oh I yelled at him No He's in my compost bottle. That's legal down in Colorado He He had just started spraying because his friend was in the very Collie was in the back and I came running out He was just spraying the bind weed along the edge of my lawn So most of the he got the bind we would he got my pumpkin plants when they were about this high He went across the street. He said well, this is this is the order for your house. I go no This is eight or this is five or whatever my neighbors across the street. So I went over there and just sprayed I've tried to talk my neighbor out of Pesticides with some people You know in the 60s, I don't know if anybody that used to have clover in your lawn at least we did backies and Then they decided no, that's everybody wanted a fairway with no clover and so The Scots and whatever other companies they found a market for their Stuff and they Just convinced everybody that that was what everybody needed. It was a nice green lawn with no weeds and dandelions and Now it's you got to do four treatments a year and everybody's got the four-step method for Fertilizing your lawn and it's like, you know, I used to fertilize my lawn with Richmond I think it is rich lawn and they and because it was organic it was like pig waste or something like that and I've been trying to grow clover in my in my gut and my Lawn and then I was talking to I was at the Colorado native plant society Meeting a few years ago and I was talking to a woman who does organic lawn care She said well, maybe you're putting too much iron on your lawn and that's why the clover doesn't go So I stopped using that now I got clover It's amazing That's the other thing is take advantage of events like this or the native plant society has a meeting in February every year get your all jazzed up for gardening the Rocky's Audubon has a bunch of Online seminars all these different groups have seminars that can teach you a lot more about you know If you have a particular thing or you want to do in your yard or you know if you're on Facebook join the Native plant society thing. It's a great list. It's kind of overwhelming sometimes Feel inadequate with trying to do stuff in my yard But I'm gonna transform a lot of my yard into native cool. I can get rid of my front lawn Yeah, oh, yeah, I mean I was just looking at on the website today and and Well, there's a seed swap event a couple of weeks ago and and But yeah, it's it's great And you know if you don't use up all your seeds this year and you have an unopened packet you can donate it to the library to a Lot of time. It's really is really great. Yeah. I use seeds I've got seeds from 2016 that I got at the event a while back They do have to go through government regulations, but if they have a pest Well No, they do have to do a study they have to fill it out, but they can use whatever science They have doesn't have to be an in-depth science. It doesn't have to be in-depth research by a independent company and so it's the It's generally the company itself that does the research Would you say otherwise if you were scotch you wouldn't sell anything? Yeah, it's a big problem and again just the whole thing that a lot of people in the EPA and the pesticide area are former pesticide company VPs and things like that It's kind of a revolving door once you get out of the EPA you go to the pesticide company so there's a I'll give a spiel for this. So there's a there's a Thing that Boulder County is spraying on their lands called rejuvra and it's to kill the cheatgrass and it was developed at CSU and The guy who got his PhD Researching this now works for bear and the bear has done a really nice job of selling this as a Fire prevention if you have cheatgrass it their assertion is is that that will burn quickly Well, there's no evidence that that burns any quicker than native grasses and It's toxic to aquatic life It's toxic to We really don't know what it's toxic to but the label says, you know We'll kill aquatic life And so when they when they do approve these things they have to say what what it'll kill Toxic to honeybees toxic to this toxic that but that's just on a fact sheet and The EPA decides yeah, that's okay So we're trying to push Boulder County to stop spraying rejuvra Because it's Killing the soil. It's killing the good things in the soil. I don't know if you've you've you've Read about how, you know plants talk to each other through the soil It's kind of like avatar. I always think of avatar, you know Plants talk to each other but It disrupts that it kills that it kills all the beneficial bacteria beneficial Beings in the in the soil and not a lot of research has done what What that I know of it what's done in the soil So we're trying to push Boulder County to stop using that But it's a tough sell because you go, oh, you know climate change. We're gonna have more fires Don't get me started on that from a meteorologist But you know after the Marshall fire was a well we want fire prevention. Well bear says look we got this great product for you we can we can help you get rid of grass and Because they say oh, well, it was the long grass. Well, the long grass was the native grasses. It wasn't the cheap grass so So that's one of the things that's another thing that we're working on now to work with the Boulder County commissioners but you know, they've the most part bought the Part of the chemical companies line. So it's a it's a hard sell. Yeah I've converted my My massive irrigation system that I put in when I put in my kids soccer field to drip irrigation So some of it I do drip irrigation, but that's only to get the plants started So this year a lot of the plants are well established and I'm not having to water them You know like the and some of them aren't native plants. So I do go around hand watering But yeah, that's good system. So you can convert your irrigation system to they have converters Basically, I've I've just like shut off the sprinkler heads and then I have one sprinkler head that I just come up and put a pressure reducer on and then It Just feeds drip system I do a variety of plants. Um, there is a program called I don't do buffalo grass. It seems like it's really hard to do buffalo grass, but I don't know It's actually if you go to CSU, it's like spray round up all over your grass Kill the existing grass then plant the buffalo grass. I'm sorry. I'm not gonna do that But maybe if long month would pay me to rip up the grass I was thinking about getting a sod cutter and then just putting down soil So one of the things about native plants is they like really bad soil, you know they don't like a lot of organic material and You know things like I was just reading have a strip along my my driveway that I've had beautiful butterfly bushes and a lot of Iris is mostly what's in there. I'm gonna rip that up and make it a native Pollinator thing and they say well, you know dig down three inches and then you put squeegee Do you know what squeegee is it's like little tiny rocks you put squeegee in there and then rototill it into about six inches and Then use then you topdress it with squeegee because if you go hiking in the forest, there's not much organic material out there. It's a very dry arid climate and It They they don't you don't need really good soil The other thing they said is you could just like dig out a spot where you want to put the plant and just put the squeegee in there If you don't want to get rid of that bold area, but yeah, so it's that's And again, we have the list of native plants up there. What's the what's the garden in a box There's the group if you just Google garden a box resource Resource-central if you go there They have the different garden in a boxes and they show you what and they they're probably sold out by now because they Sell out really quickly, but they show you the different plants as you can plant So if you have a space that's like eight by ten, they have an eight by ten garden for you and they they list the plants that they would give you and at Sometime I think it's later in the season you can actually get the plans and you know here plant this one here plant this one there But I find that is a great resource just to find out what plants you might want Because if you want one that has really tall at one end and I might do this at my in my yard and Slopes down to the street. You can get a garden like that. So that's a resource central is a good good resource The one we have in the back here actually tells you I'm not sure about the new one yet because I haven't really looked at that It just came out and we've been using this other one But I think it does it Just tell you which season it flowers in we have plenty of those in the back Yeah, please sign up for our list if you want to get more information on oops on Any of these events Especially the TBD ones. We'd love to have your help. We'd love to talk to you more about it. Thank you I love talking about pollinator