Rogue Buzzway Project
Click here to see our NEW Rogue Buzzway StoryMap!
Scroll down to learn why pollinator gardens are important and become inspired to put your garden on the map!​​​​​
January 13, 2025 - Pollinator Health@OSU | PolliNation
279 - Southern Oregon Buzzway | PolliNation
Listen to our conversation with Dr. Andony Melathopoulos of OSU's PoilliNation (and also Associate Professor of Pollinator Health - Extension for the Department of Horticulture at Oregon State University) to find out what GIS is, why it matters, and how the Rogue Buzzway map is making a difference for pollinators in S. Oregon - and beyond.
December 18, 2024 - KDRV-12
Creating a superhighway for pollinators: Rogue Valley Pollinator Project unveils Buzzway story map
Rocky Walker interviews Leo Helm, SOU Buzzway Intern, and Dr. Jamie Trammell in SOU's GIS department, about how the Buzzway map is helping connect both pollinators and people in Southern Oregon.
Our StoryMap shares just three of the stories about pollinator habitat created on the Buzzway: a farm, a From Fire to Flowers Pollinator Garden, and a from-scratch garden in Grants Pass. Enjoy!
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Find more newsworthy stories on our In the News! page.
We can rebuild pollinator habitat after the 2020 Almeda Fire.
We can offset land lost to agriculture and development.
We can bring back the pollinators in spite of steep declines in insect species worldwide.
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Your pollinator garden is the answer!
Fun Facts
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85% of the world's flowering plants depend on pollination by insects or animals to reproduce.
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1 out of 3 bites of food we eat come from pollinated crops.
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70% of bees nest in the ground.
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3,600 species of plants - trees, shrubs, grasses, flowering plants, and bulbs - and 700 species of bees are native to Oregon.
Our Mission
To inspire, engage, and educate about the ecological importance of native pollinator species and the diverse native plant communities essential for their survival – and ours. We are committed to the creation and restoration of pesticide–free pollinator corridors throughout the Rogue Valley.
The Rogue Buzzway
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Locates pollinator landscapes and gardens.
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Identifies areas that lack pollinator plantings.
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Educates and inspires the community to expand the quantity, quality, and variety of pollinator habitats.
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Improves local food production by supporting and increasing pollinator populations.
A Pollinator-Friendly
Landscape Provides
1. Forage
(Native) plants that provide flowers from early spring to early winter, and serve as "hosts" (food) for caterpillars of moths and butterflies.
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2. Moisture
A spring, seep, stream, or shallow pebble-lined dish, bird bath, or water feature to provide water, minerals, and/or mud.
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3. Habitat
Untended or natural areas with dead wood, bare soil, shrubs, grasses, and trees that provide undisturbed nesting and overwintering areas for bees, butterflies, moths, other pollinators, and beneficial insects.
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4. Pesticide-Free Space
Insecticides like neonicotinoids are toxic to insects, people, and birds! Herbicides harm pollinators, too!
Are you on the No Spray List for Jackson County Vector Control? Join other residents who are keeping their property free from Deltamethrin, the pesticide 'fogged' for adult mosquitos --- known to be toxic to bees and aquatic life!
Bee part of the Rogue Buzzway!
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Add your pollinator landscape to the map!
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Invite your friends and neighbors to create a pollinator garden!
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Learn about the ecosystems native to this region
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Help with community outreach projects
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Schedule a presentation for your organization, school, or business
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Donate!
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Sign up for our e-newsletter, The Pollinator Times!
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Volunteer!
Pollinators are as important as sunlight, rain, and soil fertility for the health of both human lives and natural ecosystems.
Create Pollinator Corridors!
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Gardens, parks, and other natural landscapes in
close proximity provide pollinators of all stripes with areas much larger than one backyard. This creates diversity for forage, nesting and overwintering areas, and reproduction.
Plant a native plant!
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For over 120 million years, native pollinators in Southern Oregon co-evolved with our native trees, shrubs, and flowers.
Learn more about pollinator corridors!
Two important quotes from this study published in the Journal of Applied Ecology:
"Privately owned residential gardens or yards (hereafter referred to as ‘gardens’) are a particularly valuable type of urban green space for insect pollinators as they are often (but not always) actively managed by gardeners to provide ornamental displays of flowering plants, which provide pollinators with food in the form of nectar and pollen."
"Being mobile, insect pollinators have the potential to take advantage of the nectar supplied by gardens despite their patchy distribution in fragmented urban landscapes, but differences in diet, larval requirements, dispersal capability and nesting behaviour among taxa will affect the composition of pollinator communities that can be supported."
This article from Science Daily confirms that connectivity makes a difference for pollinator populations, as well as for plants, birds and other wildlife.
"Our study suggests that these corridors do help in connecting populations, and theoretically they should help sustain networks of populations existing in increasingly fragmented landscapes," Tewksbury said.
This study informs us how important it is for the monarchs' survival to have a continuous and contiguous supply of milkweed available. And that the best way to grow milkweed is in large patches or along the edges of the garden, to make it easy for the egg-laying monarch to identify the plant and to reduce their availability to some predators.
This article from The Xerces Society explains that even small-scale gardens, thoughtfully planted and protected from pesticides, scattered amongst homes and businesses, will add up to meaningful habitat.
This article from The Guardian shares the good news from research published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, confirming that gardens and landscapes in urban areas are crucial for the health and longevity of pollinator species, and in fact are "pollinator ‘hotspots’."
Allotment: a small piece of ground in or just outside a town that a person rents for growing vegetables, fruits, or flowers, like a community garden.
Much gratitude to Ollie Bucolo, and Dr. Jamie Tramell and his Geographic Information Systems (GIS) students at Southern Oregon University for their work to create the Rogue Buzzway map!