To provide pollinator nesting habitat, cut dead perennial stems in their first winter

Pollinator habitat management has traditionally focused on floral resources, but the stems of flowering perennial plants could also provide nesting and overwintering resources for solitary bees and wasps. Seasonal vegetation management therefore risks destroying nesting or overwintering insects. In residential pollinator gardens, gardeners receive conflicting advice—with little evidence base—about when dead plant stems can be removed without disrupting nesting or overwintering pollinators. To address this knowledge gap in a mesic temperate climate, we conducted participatory research in which volunteers provided stem samples from their gardens, sampling cohorts of dead stems through winter, spring, summer, and fall. We received a total of 2,879 stems, representing 75 samples from 20 gardens in four ecoregions. This dataset documents the sampled stems and their insect residents, and includes results of a volunteer experience survey conducted at the end of the project. Overall, 37 stems w..., , # Dryad dataset

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.n02v6wx86](10.5061/dryad.n02v6wx86)

## Description of the data and file structure

Data from stems of perennial plants, collected from residential gardens and demonstration gardens, and examined for solitary bees and wasps nesting or overwintering inside. Data from a volunteer experience survey conducted to evaluate the participatory research approach.

### Files and variables

#### File: all_samples.csv

**Description:** This dataset is used to analyze the seasonal occurrence of solitary bees and wasps in stems (Fig. 4 in main manuscript). Each row represents one site/ date/ stem-species combination; for analysis, rows are further pooled so that one 'sample' includes all stems from a site/ date combination, regardless of species. Some rows are excluded from analysis (see 'exclude' and 'exclude_reason' columns). This dataset also provides the distribution of all stem diameters (whether occupied or not) shown in gray in Fig. 3. 

##### Variab..., The volunteer experience survey included informed consent. This research was exempt from full IRB review, as determined by administrative review of NCSU eIRB protocol #26858. The multiple-choice responses included in this dataset include no individually identifiable information. Open-ended responses are excluded from the dataset (instead they are summarized in aggregate in Appendix S2 of the associated manuscript).,