Blending colorful Native Utah wildflowers with striking ornamentals to create a magnificent, natural environment that does more than just look nice is the essence of native landscaping. Native Utah wildflowers improve drainage and provide better water seepage into the earth by breaking up the soil with their deep root systems. So your yard maintains its beauty while effectively contributing to sustainable water management.
Overall, identifying wildflowers is a fulfilling, multisensory experience that makes the journey worthwhile. Where in Utah are the best places to play with wildflowers? The most beautiful wildflower displays need a flower-spotter to be willing to put in some effort, maybe even a little perspiration. Irrespective of the length, elevation, or difficulty of the route, the best walkers on Utah wildflower trails are those who are well-fed, well-hydrated, wearing comfortable trail shoes, and wearing sunscreen.
Great Pollinator Plants for Utah
For blooming plants to reproduce and for most of fruits and vegetables to be produced, pollinators are almost as essential as the light, soil, and water. Over three-quarters of the basic crop plants that provide food for humans and over 80% of all flowering plants depend on animal pollinators, according to the US Department of Agriculture. Ants, hummingbirds, bees, beetles, butterflies, flies, birds, and moths are among the main animal pollinators but for a number of reasons, such as habitat loss, the introduction and spread of alien plant species, pesticide usage, and illness, pollinator numbers are declining. To help these vital pollinators, the most essential thing you can do is to provide habitat that is rich in wildflowers.
How You Can Help Pollinators?
- Plant in the sun: They should be exposed to full light for the majority of the day. Typically, mature butterflies only eat in the light.
- Provide long-lasting blooms: Keep pollinators alive all year round. In order to provide nectar and pollen sources throughout the growing season, select a range of plants that blossom at various times.
- Plant in groups: Clusters of blooming plants will draw more pollinators than solitary plants strewn over the landscape.
- No insecticides: Insecticides can harm or kill pollinators.
Native Utah wildflowers that are drought tolerant and help pollinators
Elephant’s Head– The Elephant’s Head is another spike of spectacular clusters that resemble the face of an elephant, complete with twisted top petals, two side lobe “ears,” and a turned-up “snout.” This Utah native blooms with purplish, fern-like leaves and 18-inch clusters of pink-purple flowers soon after the snow melts. Marshy meadows and mountain stream banks are where they flourish.
Indian Paintbrush– The vivid, color-tipped bracts of the Indian paintbrush, as their name suggests, resemble the artist’s tool. Prairies, open forests, foothills, canyons, the vicinity of the mountain timberline, and the western and southern desert regions are among the places it grows. Paintbrush nectar draws hummingbirds and bees.
Mountain Bluebell– In Utah, the ideal growing conditions for mountain bluebells are stream beds, creeksides, wet cliffs, moist thickets, and subalpine meadows. The tall forb favors soil that is consistently damp and shaded. While the leaves are blue-green and oval or elliptical in shape, the vivid blue flowers are long and bell-shaped, thus their name.
Silvery Lupine– Through its striking spike of violet, pea-like petals and palm-shaped leaves, the silvery lupine is one of the most impressive wildflowers in Utah and one of the most well-known mountain blooms. Additionally, it grows easily and adaptably to a range of environments, including high alpine regions and mountain valleys, in both sun and shade.
Utah Columbine– Utah columbine favors cold, moist environments over dry, sandy ones, like many Utah wildflowers, and it flirts with subalpine rocky slopes, woods, and nearby meadows. Columbine petals have five tube-shaped petals and five wing-shaped sepals. If you look closely, you can see that the flowers seem like little inverted replicas of the bird, and the popular name columbine really originates from the Latin word for “dove.”
Yarrow– Five ray flowers, each with ten to twenty small blooms, make up the umbrella-shaped canopy of common yarrow’s flower clusters. Unlike Achillea moonshine, its commercial yellow relative, this endemic to Utah bloom is usually white or pink. The low-growing common yarrow plant has fern-like, grayish-green leaves.
Utah’s State Flower
As you may recall from elementary school, Utah’s official flower is the sego lily. For visitors, here is a little lesson: In the middle of the 1800s, when a cricket infestation (after known as “Mormon crickets”) ruined their crops, Western Native Americans taught Mormon pioneers how to use the sego lily bulb as a food source. And voilà! In 1911, sego lilies were designated as the state flower. Open ponderosa pine stands, as well as hillsides and valleys covered with sagebrush, experience the Sego lily season in May, June, and July. Dry, sandy soil is ideal for sego lilies, which can withstand dryness.