December General Membership Meeting – Pollinator Gardens

At our December membership meeting, Katharina Ullmann will talk about Encouraging Native Pollinators in Your Garden and Beyond. Also at this meeting, members are encouraged to bring their favorite dessert item to share, and chapter officers for 2024 will be elected.

Pollinators are essential to life as we know it – they bring beauty and wonder to the world, help sustain our natural areas and provide critical ecosystem services. In this talk we’ll explore pollinators with a focus on bees native to California. We’ll learn who they are, factors that threaten them, and how we can support them in our gardens. We’ll also think beyond our individual gardens and learn how different communities are coming together to encourage these important insects.

Katharina Ullmann experiences are rooted in pollinator conservation, agriculture, and experiential learning. She has developed citizen training guides for native bees, and tested farm management practices that support pollinators such as hedgerows, wildflower strips, crop rotation practices, and tillage practices. She received her PhD in Entomology from UC Davis in 2015. Most recently she directed the 23-acre student farm at UC Davis.