Growing our Let it Grow Zones

April 16, 2025

By: Erin Parker, Interpretive Services Supervisor

In a cold and soggy spring like we’ve been experiencing in 2025, our pollinator gardens and plantings play essential roles in soaking up rain and snow, providing shelter and food for wildlife, and protecting the insects that overwintered in their stems and leaves. While they may not look like much to park visitors, there’s a lot going both above the surface and under the ground.

While winter’s weather has wreaked havoc on our Let it Grow zones, they continue to play critical roles in providing food, shelter, and water filtration during the fluctuating weather of spring. Take a closer look at these soggy brown plants, and you may be surprised at everything you find!

Food and Shelter

If you are a gardener, you’ve likely heard recommendations to leave your leaves and not do too much garden clean up in the fall and early spring. In general, to protect overwintering insects, including many species of moths, butterflies, native bees, and fireflies; reign in your urge to clean the shabby stalks and drooping plants until the soil temperatures are consistently at 50 degrees F. Insects that are adapted to this region aren’t fooled by the first warm day in April, and will remain in the stems and soil until spring temperatures have truly arrived.

These same plants provide seeds for hungry animals, including arriving migrating birds that need fuel for their journey. The plant stalks that once stood straight and tall and now flop down where snow and ice pushed them over are also making little sheltering pockets for mammals, birds, and other wildlife to seek protection from wind and weather.

Goldenrod is a familiar site with sunny yellow blooms in the late summer and fall pollinator patch. But did you know that goldenrod plants are important overwintering sites for many insects? These galls (abnormal plant growth that is created when an insect lays an egg in the green plant tissue protects the developing insects over the winter. And in the example on the right, also provides food for hungry birds that know to peck open the gall to get to the tasty larvae inside!

Water Filtration and Buffering

Rainy, wet springs and saturated soils can lead to flooding and standing water. The deeper roots systems of the indigenous plants of our Let it Grow zones and pollinator gardens can help absorb the excess water and slow the flow of it across the landscape, holding in soil and other sediments and preventing them from entering our waterways.

In many of our parks, these plantings are adjacent to retention ponds, culverts, and other water systems. They help clean rainwater runoff from parking lots and park roads, further reducing pollution entering the lakes and streams. These plants are also good at reducing erosion around the banks and edges of waterways, keeping soil where it belongs instead of allowing it to wash into the water.

Signs of Spring

Because these plantings are also deliberately designed to include a diversity of plants, they are important food from early in the spring to late in the fall. Plants that bloom early in the season feed bees and butterflies that emerge early, when little else is available to them. These insects, in turn, help fuel the migratory birds that are already starting to arrive from their warmer winter homes in the south. Late in the season, a new set of flowers and plants will be blooming, helping to feed migrating monarchs and helping other birds and animals put on the fat stores that they need to make it through Michigan’s winter season.

Take a closer look at these seemingly barren areas and see what signs of life you find! In your own yard and garden, resist the temptation to clean everything up and cut everything down until the days are consistently warm – that gives overwintering insects a chance to emerge before we remove their winter homes to make space for this spring’s growth!

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