Welcome to 2017!

Gretchen Lebuhn's picture

Start Your New Year’s Resolutions with the Great Sunflower Project.

Let's get started!
When you think about your goals for this upcoming year, consider taking steps to help pollinators in your own backyard or favorite public garden. If you have only taken our habitat challenge and worked on your garden, consider asking a few minutes to contribute four or five pollinator counts. If you are a regular count contributor, take our andrena cerasifolia female hartmut wisch_0.jpghabitat challenge and learn what you can do to improve the green spaces that you care about. Or, set a goal of doing a count every week of the flowering season. Read more for some ideas for Great Sunflower Project resolutions.

Visit your garden every week
Are you a dedicated gardener, working or volunteering in your favorite garden each week? If so, we hope you have set up that garden at the Great Sunflower Project and are submitting quick counts from lots of plants each visit. For 2017, try to plant a few Lemon Queen Sunflowers and count all the way across the summer or pick a particular month and do a count on every plant that comes into bloom.
Do you have a local public garden? Consider adopting it for 2017 and getting in two visits per month to get that garden evaluated! Once you do, you’ll already be looking forward to next year.

GSP’s 2016 Year in Review.
When you join the Great Sunflower Project, you can be a gardener, researcher and conservationist every time you watch bees or hummingbirds visiting flowers. The sightings that you report contribute to our understanding of where pollinators are in trouble and how we can help them. With more data, we will be able to better understand what is happening in your neighbourhood and beyond. We've just wrapped up examining what is happening across the continent and across years. Find out more about our results.

Most of all, thank you for all your help! Together we are making a difference.