A BETTER “POLLINATOR GARDEN”
Helping Nature AND Getting Fruits for Your Face
There’s value in putting out plants that will attract “pollinators.” There is, of course, the gardener-centric objective that such pollinators will take their pollen-doodling talents to the fruit trees and vegetable garden. Then there’s the more important objective of building and conserving populations of native pollinators.
Laying out a small plot of selected plants in a designated "pollinator garden" is certainly a gateway practice to actually creating a haven for native pollinators; but it’s not the optimum way. Putting clusters of flowers for pollinators shoulder-to-shoulder with one’s vegetable plants is another way to attract pollinators; but that, too, isn’t efficient and is usually a waste of space, with that space being better filled with more vegetables, herbs, etc.
FLOWERS, LOTS OF FLOWERS
It doesn’t take much to attract pollinators. Just plant flowers. Everywhere in the landscape and general garden.
The smart way to maximize pollination, should there be an orchard or vegetable plot, is two-fold:
(1) plant early-blooming native plants around the periphery of your garden to attract the awakening native pollinators. Plan to have plants flowering as much throughout the pollinators’ flight season as possible. Especially note when the native pollinators just begin to appear (or are scheduled to appear) and make sure there are plenty of flowers for them upon their arrival.
(2) plant spring-into-summer bloomers somewhat closer to the plants that would benefit from added pollination. No need to plant pollinator plants in amongst your fruiting veggies, shoulder to shoulder, though; that’s valuable real estate and is better given to the veggies themselves. A UC Davis study showed pollinators and other beneficial insects easily travel 80 to 100 feet to do their jobs; bumblebees much farther. Of course, planting flowers anywhere on the property is good for pollinators, albeit not so efficient for orchards and small vegetable gardens somewhere within, say, a ten-acre property.
Avoid using only one kind of flower that blooms for but one short season. Concentrating a pollinator in one area for a short period of time can lead to disease outbreaks. Also avopid “double” flowers -- the more “double” the flower, the less nectar is available to pollinators and other beneficial insects.
It really does boil down to just planting flowers. Oddly, most gardeners already do that. Almost any kind of flower is helpful but native plants provide the flowers that their evolutionary companions have been co-evolving with for millions of years. The plants can be trees, shrubs, vines, herbaceous perennials, biennials, and/or annuals.
There’s a very special group of plants that offer pollinators more than pollen and nectar. Sunflowers and almost the entire sunflower family (asters, coreopsis, rudbeckia, calendula, goldenrod, and any of hundreds of “daisies”) have pollen with spiny shells and that spininess somehow reduces a bumblebee’s susceptibility to Crithidia bombi, a deadly disease, by more than 80 percent.
Throughout the process of creating such a garden, it’s important to develop biodiversity, which in itself benefits a garden in many ways. Mother Nature works, despite its outwardly messy and chaotic processes, because of biodiversity. Biodiversity is a system of checks and balances, an insurance policy, the converse of “putting all your eggs into one basket,” and a compilation of “I-got-your-backs.” Biodiversity stabilizes an environment, particularly the soil environment. If one species dies, another (or others) will take its place and will continue the processes of the system. Bottom line, it yields greater ecosystem resilience. The human’s ecosystem, the garden or landscape, benefits in the same way. Biodiversity is our best “tool” to encourage and maintain a healthy refuge for pollinators and beneficial life in general.
Add more species of plants, in variety. Plan for more complex planting schemes. Avoid mono-cultural planting (lawns are the poster child of such; clover lawns aren’t much better, especially if it’s a non-native clover species). Mix up the vegetable garden. Plant bulbs, annuals, and small groundcovers within your rose garden. Don't mulch the entire garden between plants; plant it instead with plants, especially those that attract the native birds, bees, butterflies, and pollinators. Consider, too, the native moths. The big bonus: a more diverse plant population better supports a greater diversity of edaphon (the living entities of the soil).
Start learning who your native pollinator species are and what native plants match. Native plants not only attract native birds, pollinators, predatory insects, and parasitoid beneficial insects, they also provide resources to a host of native tiny creatures, from small invertebrates to the microscopic members of the phyllosphere (the biome ON the plant) and the rhizosphere (the biome around the roots) — the natural biodiversity.
BESIDES THE FLOWERS
Stay away from pesticides. In most current news, there are the neonicotinoids, commonly called simply “neonics.” These chemicals are partially to blame for the decline in honey bees (the prevalent news) as well as, more tragically, the decline in native pollinators (the other bees, as well as certain pollinating flies, beetles, even butterflies and moths). Neonicotinoids are found in virtually every “systemic” insecticide product, including those commonly used for pest “prevention” on roses. The most commonly used neonicotinoids are imidacloprid, clothianidin, thiamethoxam, acetamiprid and dinotefuran (as of 2020). These are the chemical names you’ll find on the back of the bottle.
Even one of the most popular “safe” pesticides, neem oil, needs to be reconsidered. In its complete form, with its active ingredient azadirachtin, neem oil works in four different ways. As an oil, it blocks the breathing holes (spiracles) of mostly small soft-bodied insects such as aphids and mealybugs, effectively suffocating them. It has a strong, odd odor that possibly repels some insects, although it should not be used as a general “preventative” spray. It is an anti-feedant that reduces the appetite of those bugs that ingest it, causing them to then literally starve to death. It should NOT, however, be used on plants when and where beneficial insects are visiting the flowers.
Btw, complete neem oil also has disease-inhibiting properties, but that, too, is good news and bad news — in addition to suppressing disease organisms, it also reduces the beneficial microbes of the phyllosphere (the living community on the leaves and stems of plants).
The full-blown version of neem oil, the form that contains azadirachtin, is no longer available in typical retail forms for home gardeners. That might be a good thing. What’s now commonly sold is a version called “clarified hydrophobic extract of neem oil.” It still smothers small insects.
Eliminate herbicides, too. The most commonly used herbicide in the world works by inhibiting an enzyme in plants; that same process also affects fungi and some bacteria. A recent study provides a new surprise: the most popular herbicide impacts the development of young bumblebees in their nests, presumably by damaging the bumblebees’ external and/or internal biomes (yes, they have one, too).
Even some “biological control products” such as Mediterranean and Chinese mantids (the common egg masses sold) are not to be used when trying to encourage pollinators (or used at all). As are all mantids, they are indiscriminate generalist feeders, preying upon any and all pollinators, as well as other “good guys” (including others of their own species and other species of mantids); they’ll even eat butterflies (including Monarch butterflies and their caterpillars). They compete with our native mantids species for habitat and food.
Another pollinator-threatening pesticide category are the broad-spectrum microbiologicals (also called biopesticides). The most common of these is the beneficial fungus Beauveria bassiana, which is used to manage most soft-bodied pests as well as ants, grasshoppers, certain caterpillars and beetles, and various fly species. But it can be a problem when sprayed while pollinators, or any beneficial insects, are out and about doing their thing.
Besides pesticides and their ilk, pollinators are reduced by too much wind and/or too little sunlight. Although windy sites can lead to the iconic picturesque wind-swept tree, more often a gardener ends up with lack of pollinators, who’d rather flit about more easily in the calmer areas. Site critical gardens away from the wind or provide at least temporary windbreaks during critical times. Of course, there’s the trade-off: although windbreaks of any kind can help encourage and protect pollinators, cutting down on air circulation can allow certain pest and disease organisms to take hold.
The vast majority of pollinators are insects and hence they are poikilotherms — usually referred to as “cold-blooded” but more accurately described as those whose internal temperatures match the external environment’s temperature. They require sunlight for the heat needed to keep moving. Reduced sunlight leads to reduced temperatures; the more shade, the fewer the pollinators.
By the way, several species of bats, the nectar feeders, are valuable pollinators. Bats are homeotherms (more commonly called “warm-blooded,” having the ability to keep their internal temperatures at a constant level). Flying at night (no sunshine whatsoever) is a breeze for them.
Looking at the bigger picture, it makes a big difference to “tie the islands” together. That is, coordinate planted and/or natural green spaces where you can between neighbors’ landscapes and gardens or in communal and commercial areas. Develop “pollinator corridors” or safe havens for native pollinators. The larger the area of plants, the more opportunities for beneficial insects of all kinds, birds, and wildlife in general to survive. Again, biodiversity.
“SAVE THE [RIGHT] BEES”
Make sure you’re saving the bees (and other pollinators) that actually need to be saved. Honey bees (Apis mellifera) don’t need a gardener’s help; the thought of saving honey bees is akin to saving chickens because someone said “save the birds.” Apiarists (professional and amateur beekeepers) take care of honey bees and they do it not because of “biodiversity,” but rather because their financial livelihoods or desired foodstuff depend on these domesticated creatures.
This sacred cow of the beneficial insect world is an introduced and domesticated species in North America. It’s used for very controlled pollination of large-scale monocultures such as fruit orchards as well as it being used in a less organized fashion for honey production. Honey bees, native to most of Eurasia, are quite common in gardens — because most ornamental and edible garden plants are also indigenous to Eurasia and these bees and these plants have evolved together. They’ve also gone feral in most of the U.S. and issues are just coming to light. Is it really beneficial in the bigger scheme of things? Several very recent studies — looking at the impact introduced honey bee hives, especially in urban areas, have had on native wild bees — have found these issues:
ineffective pollination of wild native plants; honey bee visits on pollination is negligible, and, if anything, negative. Some honey bees have learned how to circumvent the pollen-laden anthers and the pollen-grabbing stigmas by chewing a hole at the base of the flowers to get directly to the nectaries.
fewer and lower-quality seeds in flowers; possibly because honeybees spend more time buzzing between flowers of the same plant than other pollinators and they put more of the plant’s own pollen back on itself; this leads to more inbred seeds.
reduction of nectar and pollen availability leading to fewer visits from more effective native bees, hence a significant decrease in wild native bee abundance. Smaller solitary bees were affected the most with generalist bumblebee species being less affected.
risks to native plant communities; with a significant depletion in pollen grain abundance, honey bees restructure the plant-pollinator network in natural areas leaving many plants with no ability to set seed.
interference with pollination network dynamics, loss of abundance, richness, interaction patterns, specialization, and robustness. The networks became more specialized and more prone to species extinctions.
aggressive and indirect displacement of other pollinator species from floral hosts and, consequently, a reduction in foraging efficiency of native species resulting in impaired pollination services.
disease transmission; honey bees can transmit diseases to many species of native bees, including bumblebees, where they interact at shared flowers.
Adding honey bee hives to one’s property may effectively provide rewards of honey but it is not the appropriate way to “Save the Bees.” Turns out, it’s just the contrary.
Just to make sure I don’t get slammed more than I expect already, I am not advocating for disturbing honey bees and certainly not killing them. I just want to make sure that a gardener’s needs are met most effectively and that nature gets taken care of in the process.
© Joe Seals, 2024