Pennsylvania’s top 10 ‘power plants’ for pollinators

A key reason behind the recent push toward native plants is that natives tend to be the most attractive and beneficial to pollinators.

But even some native plants are more useful to bees, butterflies, moths, and birds than others.

Melissa Reckner, the program manager for the Brandywine Conservancy’s 1,089-acre preserve in Westmoreland County, recently compiled a list of what she calls “power plants” — species that have the biggest impact on pollinators.

“Some native plants have a higher value and support more species than others,” she wrote in a post on the new Brandywine Native Garden Hub . “Essentially, they are the plants that if removed from a landscape would cause the diversity and abundance of an ecosystem to significantly decline.”

If your yard has been weak on the pollinato