pollinator-friendly gardening, with kelly gill (win a how-to guide)

OUR GARDENS AND FARMS—and lives—depend on pollinators such as bees, but these critical creatures are under grave pressure. Can gardeners help? Entomologist and pollinator-conservation specialist Kelly Gill says yes: by learning more about the life cycles of bees, particularly our native species, and acting more hospitably. Two copies of “Attracting Native Pollinators” from the Xerces Society are up for grabs in the latest giveaway.

Kelly is a Pollinator Conservation Specialist for the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, an international nonprofit organization that protects wildlife through the conservation of invertebrates and their habitat. In her dual role, she is also a partner biologist, based in New Jersey, with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Kelly, who took her Masters in Entomology at Iowa State, provides technical support for planning, installing, and managing pollinator habitat across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States. She also conducts research aimed at the development of best practices for conserving beneficial insects in agricultural landscapes.

Our Q&A follows, from the latest edition of my weekly public-radio program (details on how to subscribe to the podcast are at the bottom of the page):

my q&a on pollinator conservation and gardening

Q. Before we get started, Kelly: Xerces.org–it’s one of those words I hear pronounced in two ways, as if the C in the middle is a K, and as if it’s an S. Which is right? And how did the society take that name—originally the name of an ancient Persian king, spelled Xerxes, I think?

A. We say it as if it’s an S, and it’s named after the Xerces blue butterfly. When the society began, we were focused on butterfly conservation, before our

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