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"Matchmaker, Matchmaker,
Make me a match,
Find me a find,
catch me a catch."
--Fiddler on the Roof

It was great to see pollinators being matched with plants at the mini-festival hosted by The Hive, Woodland, on May 3 on what was supposed to be the date of the 2025 California Honey Festival. Worried about the threat of a major rainstorm, the organizers of the California Honey Festival postponed it until June 21. The Hive offered a public mini-celebration. (See news story)

The matchmaker at the mini-festival was Grace Loeffelholz, a UC Davis student in the "Learning by Leading" porgram directed by Rachel Davis, GATEWAS horticulturist with the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden..

Loeffelholz stood by a gigantic board, which included images of a soap plant (genus Chlorogalum), milkweed (genus Asclepias), California golden poppy (genus Eschscholzia) and yarrow (genus Achillea).  Above the plants were four pollinators: a monarch, bumble bee, syrphid fly and a Sphinx moth.

Can you match the pollinators with the plants?

If you're a gardener, you've probably observed most of these pollinators, but can you match them?

Okay, the answers:

Monarch: Milkweed. That's the host plant.

Bumble Bee: California golden poppy (two natives)

Syrphid Fly: Yarrow (the fly also hangs out on a lot of other plants)

Sphinx Moth: The soap plant.

Cheers!