Rattlesnake master has a pollenator useful to gardeners

If you want to have a huge variety of insects to watch in your pollinator garden, add the slightly strange native rattlesnake master. Visit the Xerces society and search for Eryngium yuccafolium – from butterflies to bees, beetles to flies – all flock to the small white inflorescences. But then another exciting group comes in --- predatory wasps who capture insects to line soil cavities or stems as paralyzed. but living food for their young. Most are solitary wasps who are not especially aggressive to us so don’t feel like you are creating a danger zone by planting this late flowering perennial native in your yard. Flower stalks are four feet or so and look best when surrounded by shorter grasses or perhaps coneflowers that keep their structures after flowering and whose seed heads provide winter food for birds.