Providing wildflower-rich habitat is the most significant action you can take to support pollinators. Adult bees, butterflies, and other pollinators require nectar as their primary food source, and female bees collect pollen as food for their offspring. Native plants, which are adapted to local soils and climates, are usually the best sources of nectar and pollen for native pollinators. Incorporating native wildflowers, shrubs, and trees into any landscape promotes local biological diversity and provides shelter and food for a diversity of wildlife. Most natives require minimal irrigation, flourish without fertilizers, and are unlikely to become weedy.

Native pollinators coevolved with plants over millions of years, forming mutualisms in which plants and pollinators rely on each other for survival. In the United States, non-native (“exotic”) plants dominate ornamental landscapes, largely because they tend to attract fewer unwanted insects. The horticulture industry has become adept at “improving on” the species that were native to the United States to make their flowers larger, brighter, more suitable for cutting, etc. This process often leads to a reduction in the quality of pollen and nectar, or loss of pollen and nectar altogether. While some exotic or hybridized species supply adequate nectar, native pollinators primarily rely on native plant species. Plant wholesalers and retailers tend to grow mostly exotics, hybrids, and named cultivars that may or may not provide the food and nesting sources native pollinators rely on. These plants are often treated with pesticides, many of which harm pollinators.

This list features regionally native plants that are highly attractive to pollinators and are well-suited for small-scale plantings in gardens, urban greenspaces, farm field borders, and on business and school campuses. The Southeast region encompasses Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee. The habitats in these areas support a striking diversity of pollinators, including specialist bees like the southeastern blueberry bee, squash bee, and hibiscus bee; 18 bumble bee species; and thousands of other native bees, butterflies, flower flies, beetles, wasps, and moths.