Tips Misc – Gardening for Pollinators

Our most common pollinators are honeybees, butterflies, birds, bats and many different insects.

Pollinators visit flowers in search for their food (nectar and pollen). While visiting a flower a pollinator unintentionally brushes against the flower’s reproductive parts, depositing pollen as the pollinator moves from flower to flower, plant to plant. The plant uses the pollen to produce its fruits and/or seeds. Many plants solely rely on pollinators to reproduce.

“Three-fourths of the world’s flowering plants and about 35 percent of the world’s food crops depend on animal pollinators to reproduce.” – USDA: The Importance of Pollinators

Our pollinators are in crisis as their numbers continue to dwindle due to changes in our world like habitat loss, disease, parasites, and non-organic chemical abuse all contributing to pollinator decline.

We can’t rely upon government agencies to help solve this crisis alone, it needs our help even if all you can do is just a little. It all helps.

Planning Your Pollinator Garden

A pollinator garden can be a field (maybe not in Maplewood), replacing part of your lawn, dedicated beds or even a collection of pots. Find what works for your home.

There are pollinator plants for shade, sun, sandy soil, and clay soil. Knowing your sun and soil conditions up front will help you get the right plants for your target garden.

If your unsure what your soil conditions are then consider getting a free soil sample from the local Cooperative. See our local Cooperative here:

Prepping your space – depending on your target location, you might need to remove grass, turn compacted soil and/or remove hard scape. Wherever you decide to plant your garden, you’ll want to add nutrient-rich compost or soil to improve the success of your garden. This might be a good opportunity to plan your own compost bed too.

Selecting Your Plants

When selecting your plants you really need to put the pollinators first in your choices. Here are the goals you should try to achieve:

Plant Natives!
Continuous Food Supply
Use Repetition
Use Many Colors and Shapes
Eliminate use of pesticides

Native Plants

Native plants are a source of nectar and pollen, but more importantly are a best choice due to their low maintenance, generally pest free, and they’re already water adapted for your area.

Here are just a few, but very common native NJ plants for pollinators:

Bee Balm (Monarda species)
Blue Star (Amsonia hubrichtii)
Blue Wild Indigo (Baptisia australis)
Blueberry (Vaccinium spp.)
Ironweed (Vernonia glauca)
Lanceleaf Loosestrife (Lysimachia lanceolata)
Purple Cone Flower (Echinacea purpurea)
Sedges (Carex spp.)
Sumac (Rhus copallina)
Viburnum (Viburnum dentatum)
Canada Goldenrod (Solidago canadensis)

For more on native New Jersey plants for pollinators see Rutgers EDU: Pollinator Gardens

Continuous Food Supply

Make sure you flowers that are in bloom from the Spring through the Fall, providing adequate food for pollinators from emerging from winter hibernation to preparing for winter hibernation. There should be plenty of nectar to keep your pollinators coming back throughout the seasons.

Common NJ Spring blooms:

Bleeding Hearts (Dicentra)
Lungwort (Pulmonaria)
Jacobs Ladder (Polemonium reptans)
Peonies (paeony)
Lilacs (Syringa)

Common NJ Summer blooms:

Hyssops (Hyssopus officinalis)
Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)
Black Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia Goldstrum)
Purple Coneflower (Echinacea)

Common NJ Fall blooms:

Asters (Asteraceae)
Allium
Coreopsis
Sedum
Lobelia

Repetition

Repetition has always been one of the rules of design, whether it be home decorating, painting or garden design. Repetition of a theme or plant is pleasing to the eye.

Repetition has a similar appeal to pollinators, however, they look at repetition as meaning less time traveling and more time spent getting the nectar they desire. Pollinators will seek out gardens where there is sufficient groupings of the nectar they’re after than smaller samples that require them to continue traveling to get their fill.

So when planning your garden, try to plant multiples of the same plant to make your garden a more desired spot. You can still have many different flower types, but make sure there are enough of the same to be attractive to the pollinators.

Colors and Shapes

This might sound as though it is in contrast with ‘Repetition’ but varying flower sizes, shapes and colors, can support a greater diversity of pollinators. Many pollinators will focus on one or two plant families in a season due to the lure of the plant’s nectar. Different pollinators will have different tastes, thereby offering different flowers will draw a variety of pollinators to your garden. But even with the diversity of plantings, remember repetition is still important to the pollinators.

Include a combination of flowers and herbs in your pollinator garden. Rosemary, oregano, basil, marjoram, and borage are excellent pollinator plants allowed to go to seed.

Non-Harming Pesticides

Too often the home gardener feels they’re losing the battle against pests and weeds, pushing them to resort to using harmful pesticides. Applying pesticides to your gardens might help the plants look prettier, but it will also leave your garden baron of pollinators and even killing them, defeating the entire purpose of your pollinator garden.

“A healthy garden with the appropriate plant species and an abundance of pollinators will support natural beneficial insects—reducing the need for pest control.” – USDA

Most pollinators forage during the daylight hours, so if you must use a pesticide then spray at night or in the early morning hours before sun up. Because pollinators are attracted to flowers, avoid applying pesticides to flowers. If a flowering plant requires pesticide treatment, then remove all flowers from it during the treatment.

If you must address an infestation then try these treatments before using harsh chemicals:

Insecticidal soaps – applied on plant leaves are effective on a wide range of plant pests while preserving pollinators. They are effective on aphids, lace bugs, leafhoppers, mealybugs, sawfly larvae, spider mites and whiteflies.
Horticultural Oils – avoid petroleum-based oils, instead use those made from grains, vegetables or neem tree seeds. Horticultural oils provide excellent control of scales, aphids, whiteflies, spider mites, and sawfly larvae.
Bio-Pesticides – should be a last resort. Although there are many good products in this class that work effectively without harming pollinators, there are still many bio-pesticides that can harm our pollinators. If you must resort to these then please first read the Bio-Pesticides section of Michigan State University’s Controlling Evasive Pests. MSU go through a long list of bio-pesticide and explain their uses and risks.

Resources

Following are some great resources for Gardening for Pollinators:

Thank You

A special shout out to the Elementary students at the Lakeville Nature Conservancy of Michigan who provided the inspiration to build this Gardening Tip on Pollinators.