The need to increase native pollinator habitat calls for collaboration across multiple landscapes. One area with a lot of potential is urban areas. Many homeowners work individually to create native pollinator gardens, but might there be opportunities to collaborate with developers to implement native plants on a larger scale? Mykayla Hagaman, Program Specialist for the Iowa Monarch Conservation Consortium, had the chance to do just this during her master’s research in Central Florida.
“This collaboration really stemmed from the need to conserve water,” Mykayla said. “The development company was working with a limited water budget that wouldn’t support traditional turf grass and ornamental plants, so they had to look into alternative landscaping options, native plants being one of them.”
To test whether native plants could provide multiple benefits within suburban landscaping, researchers from the University of Central Florida and the University of Florida partnered with local developers and landscape architects to set up a 16-plot experiment assessing 27 native plant species including an array of native trees, shrubs, grasses, and wildflowers.
To address the need for water conservation, researchers irrigated half of the plots on a regular, weekly basis while the other half received irrigation only if they were experiencing extreme water stress, like during a drought. This allowed researchers to determine if native plants could help achieve the developer’s water conservation goals. One other question was to determine if native plants could establish and grow within the new development soils. During construction, these soils are often highly compacted and stripped of their nutrients, leaving behind poor growing conditions for new plants. To help remediate this, researchers incorporated compost into half of the plots.
Over the course of two years, Mykayla and a team of researchers assessed plant growth, floral abundance, and the pollinator communities that these native plants attracted. At the end of the study, they recorded 4,061 pollinators from 156 different species. Differences across the treatments allowed the team to determine how irrigation levels and the addition of compost affected both floral and pollinator abundance.
When comparing plots receiving regular, weekly irrigation to those that received limited inputs, Mykayla found no difference in either floral or pollinator abundance. In fact, the team found that using the limited irrigation treatment resulted in 79% water savings for the same amount of floral and pollinator abundance! This was an exciting find, as it showed that native plants could produce just as many flowers and attract just as many pollinators while also supporting water conservation efforts.
Concerning overall plant establishment, Mykayla found that the native plants produced significantly more flowers and attracted significantly more pollinators when compost was incorporated into the soil before planting. This result shows that soil remediation is an important consideration for new plantings in suburban landscapes. While many of the native plants grew well in the developed landscape, the success of these plants and the resources they provide can be greatly increased through the improvement of soil conditions.
One other thing Mykayla noted was that the plants that attracted the highest levels of pollinator abundance and diversity shifted throughout the year. Because many of the top pollinator attracting plants had distinct bloom times, it’s important to incorporate multiple species of native plants in landscape designs to ensure a gradual transition throughout the year with consistent floral resources available for pollinators.
Looking at the results of the experiment, the developers were very excited about the water savings potential. This success prompted them to implement native-based landscape designs in their next neighborhood, specifically using native plant-based pallets that lacked turf grass. Through this collaboration, native plants were brought into the development process and incorporated at a much larger scale than would have been possible at an individual level.
References:
Hagaman, M., Bohlen, P. J., Jenkins, D., Marquez, R. P., Iannone, B. V., & Moffis, B. (2026). Saving water, supporting pollinators: Greening new residential developments through soil remediation and diverse native plantings. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 116, 129214. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2025.129214
Photo credits: Mykayla Hagaman