Garden Ecology Lab

07/21/2026

Does more money lead to more species in a garden?

Our latest article for Pacific Horticulture, where we review studies that have examined the 'luxury effect' in garden spaces.

Summer 2026 Studies of the ‘luxury effect’ on biodiversity in garden spaces The term biodiversity refers to the variety of life on Earth. Although biodiversity…

07/03/2026

Data collection day!

Taylor is manipulating the availability of lavendar that has been planted alongside bee-attravtive native plants. They are studying whether lavender can serve as a magnet that draws honey bees away from native blooms, thus lessening competition with wild and native bees.

The plant coverings are used to create plots with 0%, 50%, or 100% lavendar availability. The native plants are Clarkia, Goldenrod, Doug Aster (not yet in bloom), and CA poppy.

06/27/2026

"How the Himalayan Blackberry Took Over the Pacific Northwest

The tangled history of an invasive plant and a scientist’s troubling quest to engineer a more efficient natural world."

The tangled history of an invasive plant and a scientist’s troubling quest to engineer a more efficient natural world.

06/03/2026

We shared an overview of results from our study of peoples' and pollinators' preferences for native plants versus native cultivars, in a recent issue of the Oregon Association of Nursery's "Digger Magazine".

Enjoy!

and Gail Langellotto Native plants have greatly increased in popularity among gardeners over the past several years, in part due to these plants’ purported value to bees and other pollinators. Howe…

06/02/2026

05/24/2026

I am thrilled to share that Garden Ecology Lab alumna Jen Hayes has a paper nominated for the Environmental Entomology People's Choice Award ("Pacific Northwest native plants and native cultivars, part I: pollinator visitation") based on citations, downloads, and Altmetric scores for papers published in 2024 and 2025. The award winner will be determined through a vote by Entomological Society of America members.

In the meantime, all nominated papers are open access (via the link in this post).

https://www.entsoc.org/publications/environmental-entomology-awards

Environmental Entomology is pleased to announce the nominations for the 2026 journal awards. The award winners will receive a free publication in the journal, extra promotion of the paper through promoting the award winners, and will be featured in poster from the EE editors-in-chief at the ESA annu...

05/10/2026

Just in time to support your summer and fall gardening goals: registration for our on-demand, online gardening class is open now, with class beginning on June 15th.

Did you know that members of the Garden Ecology Lab developed and have been delivering Oregon State University's gardening class since 2008? We update course content regularly to ensure that we deliver the latest findings from OSU's horticulture research labs, as well as other leading-edge researchers in our region and beyond

Link in comments for more information.

05/02/2026

The third in a series, profiling the gardens (and the gardeners) that have been part of our research studies.

The Dedicated Community Members Who Make The Garden Ecology Lab’s Work Possibleby Anna Janowski PART 3: SHERRY SHENG From publishing educational materials to heading the Garden Ecology League, the …

04/30/2026

The research of Garden Ecology Lab graduate, Dr. Jen Hayes, was featured in this recent story about pollinators and native cultivars.

"We found that the development of native cultivars can change traits that matter to bees, even when breeders were not intentionally selecting for nectar or pollen. Plants that stayed closer to the wild-type phenotype tended to support bee communities that were more functionally rich."

Research suggests wild-type varieties better support pollinator diversity.

04/13/2026

The second in a series, profiling the gardeners and gardens involved in our past studies of garden biodiversity.

Cover photo: Garden Ecology Lab PhD student Taylor Janecek (left) and undergraduate Reed Manderfield (right) collect data in Common Ground Garden for Janecek’s PhD project. Photo credit: Sara Van D…