Recipe for Pleasantly Pleased Pollinators - Part I
Sometimes it’s all too much. Turn on the weather channel and hear about the latest disaster which they’re sure is due to global warming. Turn to the news, and just as quickly change the channel to SpongeBob…
Reading about “The Insect Apocalypse” can only bring tears. See the New York Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-apocalypse.html.
Dive deeper, find that farmers in China are hand-pollinating fruits due to lack of bees, the UN is frightened (well, that’s always true), but unquestionably bees, butterflies, moths and other critically important pollinators are showing up on endangered lists all around the world.
Arghh! What’s a reasonably intelligent and caring homeowner to do?
Help save the pollinators, that’s what! Fortunately it’s not hard.
I often consider that planning a healthy garden is a lot like setting up the yard for a bunch of small children with more energy than sense. What would we do for them? Spray poison all over for them to play in? Banish the thought! Instead, give them brightly colored toys and serve their food on brightly colored plates. Give them lots of places to play hide ’n seek and comfortable, cool spots to rest in where they won’t get sunburned. Provide cool, fresh water for them to drink. Happy kids!
Here’s some guidelines for pollinators - really, think kids, it’s pretty much the same.
Ingredients:
Pesticide-free yard
Non-treated bedding plants
Full season bloom of blues, purples, whites and yellows; plant clumps
Water
Shade & Shelter
To Do:
SWEAR OFF PESTICIDES.
Plant non-treated seeds and bedding plants.
Provide season-long bloom in colors attractive to pollinators.
Provide water tiny creatures can drink on hot days.
Provide shade and shelter for tiny creatures.
A pesticide free yard. Pesticides have a nasty habit of doing their job, only, like antibiotics, the nasty pests they’re designed to kill off tend to develop immunity, while the poor bees, moths, and butterflies, who have less chance of acclimating to the threats, are decimated.
Pesticides sold for yards come in two types, insecticides, which kill insects, and herbicides, which kill plants. Sadly, both types of pesticides kill small insects. Larger, “nastier” insects such as Japanese Beetles and June Bugs are difficult to kill as adults because of their hard “skin” (carapace), so the most common dreadful yard poisons are designed to kill the immature young lurking beneath the soil and feeding on plant roots. You guessed it… if you can get so much poison in the soil that even these relative monsters of the soil are destroyed, what happens to smaller, helpful little immatures like ground bees that don’t eat grass roots? Ground bees are gone before the beetles are, for sure.
Even glyphosate, a broad based herbicide originally touted for being harmless to wildlife, is now famous for causing cancer in humans. If even humans are suffering cancers because of this stuff, the consequences to other wildlife must be horrific. And they are. Fish kills. Deformed fish and amphibians are regularly noted when concentrations of glyphosate rise in the groundwater, rivers, lakes, and streams, and, you guessed it again… many have odd cancers.
Skip the pesticides. Period. ALL of them.
Non-treated seeds and plants help this effort. Nurseries face all sorts of issues growing plants; many resort to chemical treatments, including neonicatinoides (infamous for its role in Colony Collapse Disorder of Honeybees). Since the seeds and seedlings often are dosed, the chemicals become part and parcel of the plant tissues, which means that the flowers that feed pollinators - and seeds that feed birds - contain these chemicals.
Don’t put down pesticides of any sort. Choose non-treated seeds and non-treated plants for your yard.
Season-long bloom critical. Consider your favorite restaurant is only open a month in the spring. Pollinators can face ALL the restaurants, groceries, and food trucks are ALL open and closed at the same time.
Individual plants just don’t bloom all the way from snow melt to leaf drop, and pollinators need food that entire time. Planting different flowering plants to ensure continuous bloom is necessary. Future posts will provide lists of recommended natives that bloom at different times to help your choices.
Large clumps of blooming plants - the same type is fine - are extremely attractive to pollinators. They’re more visible than a single, lone, bloom; their scent is stronger, too…joyously, to us humans, large stretches of the same plant is highly attractive. We like it, so do they.
A clump of blooming bedding plants at least 2 - 3 feet around is highly visible to all pollinators. Blooming trees and shrubs are simply a smorgasbord for them, offering a great deal more “flower power” than one little plant.
Plant blooming trees, shrubs, and bedding plants to create enormous “flower power.” Even a lawn full of clover - as long as you haven’t fed it awful stuff - is fabulous “flower power.”
Pick the Right Colors.
Most of us have a favorite color or two. Pollinators are the same. Bees tend to prefer blues, purples, whites and yellows; because they see in ultraviolet, red looks a lot like green to them. Butterflies have even more amazing vision - they not only see ultraviolet spectrum, but they can communicate with each other using the colors invisible to most other creatures. Moths prefer white, which is visible at night.
For happy pollinators, plant blue, purple, white, and yellow flowers.
Then, consider how you feel on a hot day when you’ve worked for hours on end. Does a cold drink and a nap sound good? Let’s treat our pollinating friends like ourselves!
Pollinators get hot, tired and thirsty just like we do. Help them out.
Ever seen a bee or butterfly just sitting on a flower or leaf? Come back a while later, it’s still there? It could just be napping, but it could also be that it’s dehydrated. Dehydration alone can kill even us - imagine what it does to tiny creatures! If they can’t fly they can’t escape a predator, and, if they’re dehydrated, flying is difficult if not impossible. Providing water that they can drink will save many a struggling butterfly or helpful bee.
It’s very easy to make a butterfly/bee “watering hole” (fun projects discussed in future blogs). The essence is to provide fresh water along with a non-slippery surface to stand on (like a dock for us to fish from) so they don’t drown. Branches stretched across your bird bath that dip into the water are great - tiny creatures can stand on the branch and sip. Birds often like this, too!
Season long bloom, which is essential for our pollinators, will also provide nice, shady resting spots for them on hot days.
Consider where the busy pollinators can rest, particularly during exhausting hot days. They generally don’t rest exactly where they nest - neither do birds - so it’s worth thinking about what will please that hard working friend.
Shade is critical. Like us, tiny creatures can easily dehydrate in the baking sun. We like tall, lofty trees and a hammock to swing in; they like pretty much anything that gives reliable shade where a hungry bird won’t find them. They’ll cling with their feet or jam their mandibles into the stem (mandibles are sort of like arms).
Luckily for us, particularly if we have little besides lawn grasses to look at in our yards, providing shade and shelter for pollinators can easily be combined with provision of other necessities. The plant may be enjoying full sun, but it provides shade - and cover - with its leaves.
Make nap spots and “drinking fountains” for the busy treasures themselves.
For fun, particularly with limited space, perhaps try a “Cottage garden” which is easily created and maintained. With cottage gardens, plants are all mixed together, flowers, vegetables, fruit trees, shrubs, you name it. These gardens became popular hundreds of years ago, when vegetable gardens were necessary simply to obtain vegetables and flowers have always been appreciated! These gardens were found so often surrounding cottages with limited yard space they became known as “Cottage Gardens.” Their simplicity is admirable and the ease of maintenance is enviable.
Happy Gardening!