You might think it is time to start cleaning up your yard and gardens. The sun has finally come out, and everything is starting to warm up. As little flowers start popping up all over your yard, you might be tempted to pull them, but don’t, or at least hold off for a little longer!
Did you know that there are over 40 million acresof turfgrass in the U.S., and roughly 2/3rds of that is home lawns. This contributes to the habitat loss that pollinators are facing. The least we can do is let a couple of weeds grow for a while.
Dandelions, Violets, Creeping Charlie, and Henbit are only a handful of blooming weeds that help provide critical nectar resources for pollinators! Leaving the weeds also helps reduce soil erosion and soil compaction. Once other plants and trees start flowering, and it is consistently 50°F or above, you can start getting your yards and gardens ready. This is when insects are out of diapause, something we would think of as hibernation, and there are plenty of nectar resources available.
If you don’t want to leave the weeds, but still want to help the bees, here is one alternative! You can plant native early spring blooming species! This actually helps pollinators more than just leaving the weeds because they provide more nutrients and nectar resources. Our native pollinators coevolved with these native Spring Ephemerals, meaning that they actually seek them out!
Below is a list of great species you could plant in your gardens or even in pots!
Pasque Flower Anemone patens
Sun: Full
Soil: Dry, native to Loess Hills area
Height: 6 inches
Bloom time: April, May
Plant in rock or dry prairie gardens, goes well with Prairie Smoke, Blue-eyed Grass, and June Grass
Shooting Star Dodecatheon meadia
Sun: Part Shade
Soil: Dry to Medium
Height: Up to 20 inches
Bloom Time: April, June
Grows in prairies and woodland edges, naturally found in high quality sites.
Grows well with Golden Alexanders, Wild Geranium
Prairie Smoke Geum Triflorum
Sun: Full
Soil: Dry to Medium
Height: 1 foot
Bloom Time: May, June
Plant in rock or dry gardens, goes well with Pussy Toes, Nodding Wild Onion, and Golden Alexander
Dutchman’s Breeches Dicentra cucullaria
Sun: Part Shade to Full Shade
Soil: Moist, well drained
Height: 4 – 12 inches
Bloom Time: April, May
Plant in rich soil that gets a lot of shade as this plant is a woodland species.
Virginia Bluebells Martensia virginica
Sun: Part Shade to Full Shade
Soil: Moist to Wet
Height: 1 – 2.5 feet
Bloom Time: April, June
They love sun in early Spring but need a shaded area as Summer begins. These plants transplant quite well, but not tolerant of sunny dry locations.
All in all, anything you can do to reduce pesticide use, create habitat and nectar resources, or increase nesting sites is a huge help in pollinator conservation. You don’t have to do a lot to have an impact on these small but mighty creatures.
I challenge you to take a walk around your yard, garden, or some green space. I want you to take it slow so you can notice all of the life that depends on the Earth. Look at all of the insects moving around, filling their niches. See all of the birds feeding on these insects and helping control populations. Notice the squirrels spreading the seeds of trees. Observe how the breeze moves the plants or how the plants move toward the sunlight.
It is up to YOU to help keep our environment healthy and thriving.
There is poop in Iowa’s lakes and rivers! I’m sure you know this by now. The Iowa DNR monitors bacteria at 39 beaches every week during the summer and posts a “swimming not recommended” sign if the average for the month exceeds 126 E. coli/100mL. If a lake has a history of problems, another threshold (235 E. coli/100mL in a single sample) is used as an early warning system. As Iowa Environmental Council has reported, Iowa DNR issued 134 of these beach advisories last summer. Streams are monitored less often, but we can use the same thresholds to evaluate average conditions at the end of the season. Last year, all 15 streams that we monitor in Story County had E. coli levels above the primary contact recreation standard.
Story County Conservation posted a warning sign at the Tedesco Environmental Learning Corridor.
Okay, but what do we do with that information?!
I know some people who are so grossed out they won’t dip their toes in any lake or river in Iowa, even if the DNR says it’s okay. I know some other people who went ahead with a canoe trip on the Des Moines River, despite reports that just two days before, a broken sewer main in Fort Dodge had released 400,000 gallons of raw sewage into the river upstream of their route. They’ve paddled polluted waters before and figured it was no worse than usual.
Part of the difficulty is that some people translate “an unacceptably high number of beach advisories” to “lots of poop in the water everywhere all the time.” That’s not what’s happening. If you picked a summer weekend and a state park at random, and took your family to the beach, you would have had a 77% chance of swimming in water that met the primary contact recreation standard. If you subscribe to IEC’s Water Watch newsletter, you can make sure you pick the right one!
Part of the difficulty is that Iowa relies heavily on just one threshold to issue alerts and place waters on the Impaired List. Some other states have started used a red/yellow/green warning system that distinguishes between “swimming not recommended” at 235 E. coli/100mL and “beach closed” at 1000 E. coli/100mL. This is helpful if you’re a little more tolerant of risk or are doing activities that will keep your head above water. That upper limit is the same as the one used during the 2024 Summer Olympics to determine whether to hold swimming events in the River Seine.
Seine River in Paris, photo credit Erik Larson
You may recall that Paris spent $1.5 billion to clean up the Seine River in time for the 2024 Summer Olympics and still had to postpone some events because of poor water quality. Similarly, Story County Conservation has spent $3.4 million to restore Hickory Grove Lake and still had to post beach advisories four weeks last summer. There is no easy fix for these problems. However, a long-term perspective on water quality in the Seine shows how an open sewer can become a swimmable river (at least most of the time) with improvements in wastewater treatment. Yes, Iowa has more livestock than people, but I’ve been seeing some evidence that points to humans as the main source of feces and pathogens in many of Iowa’s waterways. If that’s true, then our water quality could benefit from projects to replace combined sewer systems (we still have a few), add liners to rusty sanitary sewers, get septic systems up to code, and make some overdue upgrades to sewage treatment plants.
Randy Evans was on the right track when he compared water quality in Iowa to water quality in Paris, but he only looked at one day. I’ve gone a few steps further. In the attached table, I’ve shown the best, worst, and average E. coli readings measured last year at some of Iowa’s most popular beaches and water trails. Below, I’ve put them in broad categories, benchmarked to some examples from France. I’ve also included some sites we monitor in Story County, in bold. Get ready to calibrate your disgust!
How do we measure poop in the water?
Escherichia coli is a species of bacteria found in the guts of birds and mammals. Some strains are harmless and some can put you in the hospital. It’s an easy-to-measure proxy for feces in the water, which could carry a wide variety of disease-causing microbes. E. coli can be measured directly by counting dots in a Petri dish (Colony Forming Units, CFU/100mL) or indirectly using a chemical reaction (Most Probable Number, MPN/100mL) but the results are similar enough that these units are often used interchangeably.
Typical laboratory protocols have a lower detection limit of 10 and an upper quantification limit around 24,000. With such a big range, E. coli data has to be plotted on a log scale and averages have to be expressed as a geometric mean or median—basically, worry less about the exact number and more about the number of digits.
1 digit: As clean as it gets without chlorine
Too low to detect, with typical methods (reported as <10)
A typical beach day at Peterson Park
A typical beach day at Lake Rathbun, Gray’s Lake, or Lake Okoboji
A good day at most lakes on the impaired list
Peterson Park Beach. A favorite spot for my family during COVID lockdown and consistently clean.
2 digits: Have fun in the water!
Meets Iowa’s primary contact recreation standard (geomean <=126, single sample <=235)
A typical day at a French stream running through forest or cropland
Treated effluent from Iowa sewage treatment plants with UV disinfection
A typical beach day at Hickory Grove Lake
A typical beach day at Lake MacBride (Iowa City) or Big Creek
A bad beach day at Peterson Park
A bad beach day at Lake Okoboji
A typical day at the Charles City or Manchester whitewater parks
A good day at most rivers on the impaired waters list
Kayaker at Manchester whitewater park. I tipped and swallowed water when I attempted it, but it was probably fine.
Low 3 digits: Swim at your own risk (families)
May exceed IA primary contact recreation standard (geomean >126, single sample >235)
A typical day at a French stream running through pasture
The Seine River in Paris during the women’s marathon swim
A typical beach day at Clear Lake or Lake Darling
A bad beach day at Lake Rathbun
A bad day at the Charles City whitewater park
A typical day on the S. Skunk River water trail
Kids swimming at Clear Lake. No beach advisory on this day, but there had been other weeks.
High 3 digits: Swim at your own risk (athletes), canoe at your own risk (families)
May exceed Iowa’s secondary contact recreation standard (geomean > 630, single sample >2,880)
The Seine River in Paris during the men and women’s triathlon
A typical day at Ioway Creek in Ames
A typical day on the lower Maquoketa River (near Spragueville)
My daughter playing on a sandbar in Ioway Creek in Ames. I’m sad to say it, but I don’t think kids should be playing in this water.
4 digits: No swimming, canoe at your own risk (experienced paddlers)
Action limit for beach closures in some states (single sample > 1000)
A bad day for the Seine at the 2024 Olympics; men’s triathlon postponed
A typical day for the Seine in the early 2000s (since improved sewage treatment, but before sewer system improvements)
Treated effluent from modern Paris sewage treatment plants
A bad beach day at Gray’s Lake, Lake MacBride, Big Creek, Clear Lake, or Lake Darling
A typical day at West Indian Creek, downstream of an outdated sewage treatment plant
A bad day on the Skunk River or Ioway Creek (1.5 inch rain previous night)
A bad day at the Manchester whitewater park
Canoe trip on Ioway Creek in Boone County. I collected a water sample at this moment. E. coli measured 2,390 CFU/100mL.
5-6 digits: Stay out of the water
May be too numerous to count, with typical methods (reported as > 24,000)
A typical day for the Seine in the 1980s, before modern sewage treatment
A bad day on the Seine River in 2008, before attempts to control combined sewer overflows
A bad day at West Indian Creek (1.5 inch rain previous night), downstream of an outdated sewage treatment plant
Flash flooding in the Skunk River or Ioway Creek (June 2022). No one should be in the water during these conditions.
Two bad days on the lower Maquoketa River (near Spragueville), during high water levels
A bad day at Hickory Grove beach. Previous studies have shown that the main source of the bacteria is geese and dogs at the beach.
The new Nevada sewage treatment plant should be operational this year and will have a UV disinfection system like this one. This should make it safer for kids in Maxwell to play in Indian Creek.
Cracked sanitary sewer in Ames leaking into Ioway Creek, September 2009
No picture for this one. You’re welcome!
What is the risk of poop in the water?
Recreational water quality standards are based on epidemiological studies at swimming beaches. Researchers have found that swimmers were more likely than non-swimmers to get sick with gastroenteritis (“stomach flu”) and that illness rates were higher at beaches with more fecal indicator bacteria. Symptoms can range from mild to dangerous and are often falsely attributed to food poisoning. The EPA recommended a threshold of 126 E. coli/100mL to keep the risk of illness below a certain level for swimming, water skiing, children’s play, and other “primary contact” activities, but you should think of it as a point on a continuum rather than sharp break between “safe” and “unsafe.” Secondary contact recreation standards are used less often and involve some adjustment factors.
There are many factors that can influence whether you get sick while at the beach—how much water you swallow or get on your face, whether the source of the feces is human or animal, your general health, and previous exposure to the pathogens. There are also some challenges in accurately quantifying E. coli levels in water, which can vary a lot even within the same body of water and over a short period of time. I ran across a randomized control trial from Germany that controlled for all these factors. Some 2000 people were recruited to spend an afternoon at one of four locations (3 lakes and 1 river). Half stayed on shore and half were asked to spend ten minutes in the water, dunk their head at least three times, and report if they accidentally swallowed water. Water samples were collected every 20 minutes from the center of the swimming area and tested for E. coli. Researchers tracked how many people got sick over the next week with symptoms of a waterborne illness. Here are the results.
Water quality (E. coli/100mL), by quartile
Incidence rate of gastroenteritis
Control group
2.8%
0 to 72
1.9%
72 to 181
5.2%
181 to 379
6.6%
379 to 4,600
8.2%
What about really polluted water? An academic review board would never approve an experiment to send 931 people into a bay polluted by a combined sewer overflow, but a group of Danish triathletes was reckless enough to do it for fun. After swimming 3.8 km in water with an estimated 15,000 E. coli/100mL, 42% of them got sick with Campylobacter, Giardia, or E. coli!
There you have it, these are ballpark, intuitive judgements about when to go in the water and when to stay out, but they are informed by good science. Oops, did I just give health and safety advice without running it by anyone?
Prairie Rivers of Iowa is not a medical professional and our work is not conducted under a DNR-approved quality assurance plan, please consult your doctor and refer to section 567-61.3(3) of the Iowa Code, terms and conditions apply.
Bottom line, you may disagree with the interpretation I’ve outlined here, but there’s clearly a lot of wiggle room to enjoy Iowa’s waters without taking unnecessary risks with your health.
Rain gardens are a stormwater management solution that’s simple enough to tackle as a DIY project: dig a shallow basin to intercept runoff from a downspout or paved area, plant it with ornamental grasses and flowers, and pat yourself on the back for doing your small part to prevent flash flooding, streambank erosion, and water pollution! However, I’ve noticed a few things that can go wrong. Here are some tips to avoid them!
These tips also apply to the bioretention cells you’ll see in public right-of-ways, which are similar, but have an underdrain and an engineered soil mix.
Standing Water
A rain garden may fill up with water after a heavy rain, but it should soak into the ground within 24 hours. This will prevent mosquitos from breeding and allow a wider variety of plants to thrive. To achieve this, you either need to find a spot with well-drained soil, or you need to amend the soil with sand and compost. It’s important to test the infiltration rate of the soil: a 6 inch deep rain garden would need soil that can infiltrate at least 0.25 inches of water per hour.
This bioretention cell has turned into a cattail marsh, with standing water for extended periods in the spring. I tested the soil for a school project and determined that the soil had too much clay content and had been compacted during construction.
Erosion and Debris
There are guidelines for how big to make a rain garden to handle the runoff from a given area. However, if space is limited, an undersized rain garden is better than no rain garden. The trick is to manage the overflow.
This rain garden treats the runoff from a church parking lot. Once the water level gets high enough, it enters a pipe that connects with the storm sewer. This pipe was installed in response to concerns about soil and mulch washing onto the sidewalk when water overtopped the berm. We installed a mesh barrier to keep woodchips from clogging the outlet. I’ve heard that shredded hardwood mulch is less prone to floating than wood chips and bark nuggets.
One other issue with this rain garden was erosion as water made its way from the pavement to the low point. To solve this problem, I regraded the basin so it had a level bottom (using a line level, rake, and shovel), and put some stones and gravel at the edge of the pavement to absorb the force of the water.
Dead plants and weeds
There are many lovely species of native plants that can thrive in a rain garden, once established, but as seedlings they may struggle to withstand alternating periods of flooding and drought. To improve their odds of success, you can redirect the downspout or plug the opening to the rain garden for a few months, irrigate, and protect them from rabbits and deer. If that’s not possible, expect to replace a few plants.
Just like any other garden, a rain garden can get overrun with weeds, especially when the desirable plants are just getting started. Sturdy labels or ID guides can help whoever is responsible for maintenance know what to pull and what to keep, but for a situation like this (a highly visible commercial right-of-way managed by the city) simpler planting plans are probably better.
I hope this article helps you avoid some common pitfalls but doesn’t discourage you from trying. I planted a rain garden in my backyard last spring and have already enjoyed some blooms and monarch butterflies!
Spring is around the corner and that means it’s time to plan our gardens! A fun garden to add to your yard is a sensory garden. A sensory garden involves all of your senses (taste, touch, smell, sound, and sight) making it a great learning opportunity for young children, adults with mental disabilities, or really anyone! It stimulates your mind and allows you to connect with nature. These are the plants I would use if I wanted to create an Iowa native sensory garden!
Rattlesnake Master Eryngium yuccifolium
Sense: Touch
This fun-looking plant would be perfect to stimulate your sense of touch, especially as fall approaches and it becomes more prickly. They are the larval host plant for Eryngium Stem Borer Moth and the Flower Feeding Moths. This wildflower is mostly pollinated by nectar eating wasps.
Plant Needs:
Full sun
Moist to medium soil
Swamp Milkweed Asclepias incarnata
Sense: Smell
This plant is the host plant for the Monarch Butterfly and is a brilliant purple when in bloom. The blooms smell like bubblegum!
Plant Needs:
Full to part shade
Moist soil
Pale Purple Coneflower Echinacea pallida
Sense: Touch, Sight, Taste
Pale Purple Coneflower is native to most of Iowa whereas Purple coneflower is more of a garden variety and not native to Story County. The brilliant purple petals are used for herbal teas. The seed head is spikey so use caution when touching.
Plant Needs:
Full to part sun
Medium to dry soil
Bead Grass Paspalum setaceum michx
Sense: Touch
Bead grass is super fun to seed harvest! the little seeds are like seed beads and you can just use your hand to strip the seeds off.
Plant Needs:
Full sun
Warm season grass
Dry soil
Gray-headed Coneflower Ratibida pinnata
Sense: Smell, Sight
These yellow flowers are the larval hosts of the Wavey Lined Emerald Moth. Long Horned Bees love Gray headed Coneflower and can be seen covered in pollen on top of them.
Plant Needs:
Full sun
Dry soil
Bee Balm Monarda Fistulosa
Sense: Taste
They are a pollinator favorite and one of the best forage plants for bumble bees. they are the larval host plant of Hermit Sphinx Moths and Snout Moths. They are in the mint family and have a square stem. The petals also taste minty and can be made into a tea.
Plant Needs:
Full to part sun
Prefers dry soils
Wild White Indigo Baptisia alba
Sense: Sound
They are the larval host plant of the Slouded Sulpher butterfly, Genista Broom Moth, and Black-Spotted Prominent Moth. Bumble bees are the primary pollinators of wild white indigo.
Plant Needs:
Full to part sun
Prefers dry soils
Now get out there and grow some native plants! Don’t forget to tag Prairie Rivers in your native gardens on Facebook.
This letter is a satire of DNR’s latest response to the EPA’s partial disapproval of Iowa’s 2024 Impaired Waters List. My first impression was that this was a technical dispute with low stakes for water quality and industry. In theory, adding waters to the 303(d) list can result in stricter permit limits on point sources and open up grants for non-point source projects, but in practice there are many loopholes and backlogs that make that unlikely. However, it still matters whether Iowans are getting honest information about the condition of our waters from the agency charged with protecting them. Iowa DNR’s position is ridiculous and indefensible.
To the attention of the US Environmental Protection Agency, Region 7:
Dear Sir,
In your November letter, you stated that Iowa’s 2024 Impaired Waters List should have included six more river segments that are too polluted by nitrate to fully support drinking water uses. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources strongly disagrees and objects to the implication that Iowa’s water is unsafe, or that DNR is not meeting the letter or the spirit of the Clean Water Act.
Just to be clear, we’re not talking about whether the water is safe for fish or swimming. Toxic algae blooms are a separate issue, for which nitrate is at most a contributing factor. Okay, good we’re on the same page. It’s impossible for most waters to end up on the 303(d) list because of nitrogen or phosphorus pollution, because we still haven’t set numeric criteria to protect aquatic life. The 10 mg/L standard for nitrate applies only to the 61 reservoirs and 18 stretches of river that were designated Class C waters, because they are currently or were historically used as a major source of drinking water.
Ultimately, the goal of EPA and DNR is the same: to ensure that Iowa’s drinking water is safe. It is safe! Well… maybe not for adults. We have the second highest cancer rate in the nation and there is growing evidence that one of the risk factors is long-term exposure to moderate levels of nitrate in drinking water. But nobody is seriously proposing we do anything about that! The issue here is whether tap water is safe for babies, whether nitrate-nitrogen is below the Maximum Contaminant Level of 10 mg/L, as required by the Safe Drinking Water Act.
I’m happy to say that water utilities on these six rivers have been able meet that standard by either:
Mixing high-nitrate river water with low-nitrate water from wells and reservoirs
Asking customers to cut back on water use during times when the reservoir has a toxic algae bloom
Drilling enough wells so they no longer have to use any river water
What, you don’t think giving up on polluted rivers is consistent with the spirit of the Clean Water Act? Hey, if it works… Oskaloosa switched its water source from surface water to an alluvial aquifer years ago, and those wells usually have low nitrate levels. That means that even though we’re still legally required to assess nitrate in the South Skunk River, we no longer have any practical reason to worry about it! Granted, alluvial aquifers are still susceptible to contamination from the adjacent river. Cedar Rapids recently saw nitrate in their wells rise to 9 mg/L, but we’re crossing our fingers that it doesn’t get worse.
Let’s get back to the main issue under dispute. We’re not talking about water quality in 2024, we’re talking about the assessment that we released in 2024, which uses water quality data from 2020-2022. The silver lining of a multi-year drought is lower nitrate levels in the rivers! We are not talking about whether a single sample of river water exceeds 10 mg/L, we’re talking about whether 10% of the samples exceed 10 mg/L.
Sure, a single sample of finished tap water exceeding the 10 mg/L MCL for nitrate would constitute a Tier I violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act, requiring public notice and corrective action. However, so long as that corrective action is needed less than 36 days each year, we think it’s fair for the burden of removing nitrate from the water to fall entirely on drinking water utilities and their customers rather than polluters.
What, you don’t think this 10% threshold for evaluating the source water makes any sense? Well too bad! We’ve gotten away with doing it this way for decades and calling us on it now would violate the no-take-backsies clause of the Administrative Procedures Act. You’ve made the mistake of focusing on the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law and we can argue about which pollutants go on which list, which list can be assessed using the 10% binomial statistical exceedance approach, and what hoops you need to jump through to change anything until babies are blue in the face!
Should this arbitrary and capricious abuse of federal authority stand, we might someday have to write a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) explaining why it’s impossible to clean up nitrate in the South Skunk River, Des Moines River, and Iowa River. If you carefully read the TMDLs and permits that we’ve already prepared for the Cedar River and Raccoon River watersheds, you’ll see that would be a waste of our limited staff time and paper.
Nitrate in drinking water is under control. Please stop talking about it. If we must talk about nitrate, we prefer the discussion be framed around Gulf Hypoxia and the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy, because that makes the problem seem far away and less urgent.
A new year means new resolutions! My personal resolutions are to build garden boxes out of reclaimed bricks and seed native plants in my backyard. There are many other things you can do to support pollinators this year.
Become a Wildlife Gardener
Choosing a patch (big or small) of turf grass to transform into a beautiful native garden is a great way to help native wildlife and pollinators. To help pollinators you should plant species that bloom in the Spring, Summer, and Fall to ensure there are nectar resources year-round.
Some of my favorite native plants are Purple Prairie Clover, Golden Alexander, and Bee Balm!
Create Nesting Sites
You can create natural nesting sites by leaving logs on the ground to break down or leaving your cut plant stems in the fall. Brush piles can also provide a great nesting area. Bee hotels can also create needed nesting sites for our pollinators although they require careful maintenance to keep disease and mite numbers low.
70% of our native bees are ground-nesting. Help them out by creating access to patches of bare soil and avoiding tilling while they nest. Another way to help ground-nesting bees is to consider mulching with compost instead of wood bark mulch – it has many of the same benefits such as weed suppression, and water retention, yet allows for nesting and improves your soil!
Some pollinators only lay their eggs on specific host plants. For example, the Monarch butterfly’s host plant is Milkweed.
Another is the Regal Fritillary with their host plant, Violets.
Planting specific host plants for pollinators is another great way to create habitat!
Reducing Pesticide Use
Reducing pesticide use has a HUGE impact on local wildlife health! Whether it is insecticides, herbicides, rodenticides, or fungicides, they hurt and can kill beneficial insects like pollinators. They are designed to kill, and they do that well. Pesticides can also become dangerous runoff when it rains and wash away into rivers or waterways.
According to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, American homeowners use up to ten times more chemical pesticides per acre on their lawns than farmers use on crops. You will need less pesticide if you create better soil health by composting, aerate the soil so insects have an easier time incorporating organic matter, and use Integrated Pest Management (IPM).
There are plenty of alternatives to using pesticides in your garden.
Here are some options:
Use your hands the old-fashioned way! I love getting my hands dirty when I garden. It makes me feel connected to nature.
Add barriers like fencing or mesh to keep pests off of your plants.
Be mindful by only using pesticides when absolutely necessary. These are times like battling invasive species or infestations. Use targeted chemicals for specific issues and avoid broad-spectrum or systemic pesticides that harm everything they come in contact with.
Create a Water Source
Pollinators need water too! Bees use water to help regulate the temperature of their hive and feed their young. Bees can’t swim so it is important that any water source you create is shallow and has some sort of hard surface scattered in it. You can make your own pollinator watering station easily.
You can use a bird bath if only add a little water and add rocks.
You can also use a hummingbird feeder filled with regular tap or rain water! No need to add anything. The bees will gather on the fake flowers and drink to their heart’s content. Hummingbirds will also still visit for a quick drink.
If you have rocks or glass marbles you can fill any container with them and a little water. This gives pollinators plenty of places to stand and drink from.
If you want a self-filling watering hole, you can even use a gravity-fed pet feeder. Just add rocks to the bottom bowl to prevent drowning.
