How does Pollination Work?

Most of your pollinators are drinking nectar from the flowers, and some accidentally bump up against the plants looking for other food sources. It’s sort of a messy business: as pollinators eat the nectar, the pollen piles up on their, legs, wings, or bodies (depending on the pollinator in question). As the pollinator visits several flowers, the pollen gets passed from plant to plant. Within the pollen are gametes that fertilize other flowers in the area. Your flowering fruits and vegetables require pollination throughout the growing season to produce well.

All pollinators are a necessary part of the food chain:pollination produces fruits and vegetables; various animals, reptiles, and birds eat the fruits and vegetables; carnivorous animals eat those veggie-eating creatures. Humans are one of those creatures! Pollinators are there for a critical part of our food production, so we should work hard to protect pollinating species by providing food sources and choosing our forms of pest control wisely.

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Who’s Invited to this Pollination Party?

When you think “pollinators,” do you automatically think,“bees”? You’re not wrong! Bees are a major pollinator. Of course, there are many kinds of bees, including bumblebees and honeybees, but basically all species of bee help with pollination. Honeybees will, of course, produce honey with their nectar. Other species of bees use their nectar to feed their hives.

However, there are many other pollinating species, such as butterflies, moths, hummingbirds, bats, wasps, and hover flies. Butterflies and humming birds are beautiful, and add a lovely atmosphere to your gardens. With the exception of cabbage moths – which can harm your brassica vegetables – some species of moths can provide pollination, too. Bats can provide pollination, and they can also control insects in the area. Hover flies mimic wasps and bees, but without the stingers; don’t be afraid if you see these skinny, yellow-striped insects in your flowers: they are also contributing to pollination. Wasps are also pollinators; if no children or pets are in danger, wasps can be left alone in the fall to continue pollination of late-harvest plants.

You can choose to plant annuals that are more specific to a few kinds of pollinators. For example, there is some dispute as to whether certain coloured plants are more or less attractive to bees and butterflies, but a general rule of thumb is that brightly-coloured flowers and specific varieties have a better chance of attracting them. Long, “tube-shaped” flowers– like cannas, petunias, and morning glories – tend to be attractive to humming birds. In any case, the key is to provide a number of different kinds of flowers and supplement your yard with other attractants to appeal to specific pollinators. If you want to see hummingbirds, provide a feeder with the correct food – no dyes, please! – and a water source, which will also appeal to bees and birds. Provide chunks of fruit on a paper plate for birds and bats.Butterflies also love a plate of fruit sitting in a little water, so they can get a snack and a drink. Bat houses and “insect hotels” also provide a safe space which helps make your yard more appealing.

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Pest Control

With a pollinator garden, you will want to be very cautious about the application of pesticides. Some pesticides will kill pollinators outright. Other pesticides can confuse bees, making it difficult for them to return to their nests, meaning that they may eventually die or stop producing baby bees. Here are some tips for pesticide control in a pollinator-friendly garden:

·      Avoid spraying pesticides directly on anything that flowers. Instead, use ladybugs or praying mantises as natural pest control if you have aphids or thrips.

·      As long as you don’t apply ladybugs, you can use diatomaceous earth: these fossilized diatoms act like broken glass for anything that crawls (which would unfortunately include ladybugs). Apply this to soil, where this is unlikely to also harm flying pollinators. If you want to use both diatomaceous earth and ladybugs, apply ladybugs after a rainfall!

·      Herbicides can also indirectly cause damage to pollinators: leave the first dandelions as an early food source for bees.Consider removing dandelions before they start going to seed by hand, or apply a corn gluten weed control to keep new weed seeds from germinating without killing existing plants.

·      Consider using a fine net cloth – like a frost blanket – to protect brassica plants, such as broccoli, brussels sprouts, and cabbages from cabbage moths to reduce the overall use of pesticides in the area.

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Mix and Match

Traditionally, most people keep separate flower and vegetable gardens for aesthetic reasons. However, if you’re buying both anyway, you’re missing out on some simple tricks to increase pollination and pest control through companion planting.

· I like to plant marigolds around my tomatoes: I plant a row of marigolds beside my tomato row, as well as a marigold in each tomato container. Marigolds have also been known to repel squash bugs, thrips, tomato hornworms, and whiteflies.

· I also plant flowers near my cucumbers, like morning glories, to increase pollination.

· Nasturtiums are a great “trap crop” – meaning that they will attract aphids and keep them away from other plants.

Using plants as companions can help to control pests, making the garden more safe for pollinators overall.

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What do I choose?

There are so many annual flowers to choose from! Here is a quick list that you can use to put together a pollinator garden. Remember to use a wide variety to get lots of options for many different pollinating species.

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·      Alyssum

·      argyranthemum

·      Bidens

·      Calendula

·      Calibrachoa

·      Cosmos

·      Guara

·      Lantana

·      Marigolds

·      osteospermum

·      Pansies

·      Petunias

·      Phlox

·      Salvia

·      Sunflowers

·      Zinnias

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Let us help you put together a beautiful PollinatorParadise!

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