Welcoming Pollinators

Attracting pollinators like bees, butterflies, and birds to your landscape enhances biodiversity, increases fruit and vegetable yields, and creates a healthier, self-sustaining ecosystem. Pollinators improve plant quality and support local wildlife, leading to a more vibrant and natural garden environment.

Benefits Pollinators Provide

• Increased yield and better food quality: Pollinators are essential for fertilizing plants, leading to higher yields of fruits, vegetables, and nuts in your garden.

• Enhanced garden biodiversity: By attracting a variety of pollinators, you support a wider range of plant species and create a more robust, diverse ecosystem.

• Reduced need for pesticides: Pollinator-friendly landscapes often attract other beneficial insects, which can help naturally manage pest populations, reducing the need for chemical interventions.

• Support for local ecosystems: Pollinators are crucial for the reproduction of over 75% of the world’s flowering plants, aiding in the health of your local environment.

• Increased property beauty and value: A pollinator-friendly garden, often filled with blooming, native plants, increases the aesthetic appeal of your home and encourages a more serene environment. A garden teeming with bees and butterflies offers great opportunities for observing nature, enhancing, and educating children about the environment.

By Invitation Only!

Attract pollinators by planting native species in clustered, color-varied, and sun-loving clumps that bloom from spring through autumn to provide consistent food sources. Choose tubular, nectar-rich flowers. Add a water feature (even shallow dishes) to your landscape. Naturally occurring native bee and butterfly nesting spots, such as dead wood, bare soil, and hollow stems, leave alone.

Different pollinators are attracted to different types of flowers. Include a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors to attract bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and other pollinators. Bees prefer tubular, bell-shaped and composite flowers with a landing platform in varying hues of blue, purple, white and yellow. Butterflies enjoy flat-topped, clustered or tubular flowers where they can land and sip nectar from bright colored blooms such as red, orange, pink and purple. Hummingbirds are also attracted to bright colored flowers, but prefer tubular or trumpet-shaped blooms that allow their long beaks and tongues to reach nectar. Incorporating varying blooms times that range from early spring to late fall provides a continuous food source for pollinators.

· Native pollinators prefer local plants.

· Group at least three to five of the same plant together; this makes it easier for bees and butterflies to find them.

· Ensure there is something blooming in your garden from early spring to late autumn.

· Set up a shallow birdbath or a dish with water and stones, which helps butterflies drink, suggests PVE.

· Leave some areas of bare soil for ground-nesting bees and keep dead wood or brush piles, as mentioned on Gingham Gardens.

· Use organic or non-chemical methods to handle pests to avoid killing beneficial insects.

Native plants and local pollinators have evolved together, resulting in specialized relationships. The flowering periods of native plants often align perfectly with the activity cycles of local pollinators, providing food sources when they are most needed. Native plants contribute to a natural habitat that supports the entire lifecycle of pollinators, including breeding and nesting sites Many native plants serve as host plants for the larvae of specific butterflies and moths.

Grouping flowers in clumps rather than scattering them makes it easier for pollinators to find and visit them. Clumped flowers are more visible from a distance. This is particularly important for bees and butterflies, which rely on visual cues to locate food sources. Clumped flowers help pollinators conserve energy by being able to visit multiple flowers in a single clump without traveling long distances. This also provides a more substantial and continuous source of nectar and pollen. This consistency is vitally important to bees, which need to collect large amounts of food to support their colonies.

Double bloom varieties have extra petals that can make it difficult for pollinators to access nectar and pollen. These varieties are often less beneficial than their single-bloom counterparts.

While perennials are an excellent source of nectar and pollen, many annuals offer quality sources of nectar and pollen production and can help fill the gap between perennial bloom times. Many trees and shrubs are also crucial to pollinators and provide substantial nectar and pollen, especially in early spring when other flowers are scarce.

Pollinators need water. A shallow dish with stones for them to land on, a birdbath, or a pond or pondless waterfall can provide necessary hydration, especially during our hot, dry summer months.

Leave some areas of your garden a bit wild in order to create a habitat. Logs, bare ground, and undisturbed areas provide nesting sites for bees and other pollinators. Avoiding a fall clean up also allows places for pollinators to overwinter. Delaying a spring clean-up until temperatures are above 50 degrees for more than 10 consecutive days will prevent disruption to their winter slumber until the weather is warm enough for them to emerge. Be okay with some holes in your leaves. Remember that many pollinators are insects and any chemicals you use will affect all insects (not just the ones you don’t like).