Pollinators are essential, and every experienced gardener understands this. Without them, your garden won’t be able to deliver the maximum yield of fruits and vegetables. Many of your plants will be pollinated by insects, and there is evidence that bees are among the most important pollinators. Since bees deliver more than soothing buzzing music, it’s a good idea to devote some time and resources to ensure that your garden is attractive to them.
Why are Pollinators Visiting Your Garden?
You might be wondering why these pollinators are coming to your garden, to begin with. Well, when insects and birds visit your garden, they are generally looking for two things:
Nectar: Nectar is a mix of sweet sugars and the primary source of energy for bees and some insects.
Pollen: Pollen is loaded with proteins and fats.
Many of the popular flower types nowadays have been hybridized. While hybridization has many benefits, like disease resistance, improved flower size, and color, it also reduces nectar and pollen production. Sometimes it even leaves the plant sterile and therefore useless to pollinators. If you think that hybridization is terrible for pollinators, then you are right. Having a garden that consists of hybrid plants only is the equivalent of banishing pollinators from your property entirely.
General Gardening Advice
If you want to attract pollinators to your garden, you can implement the following essential gardening tips:
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Have Lots of Nectar and Pollen-Rich Flower Types
This one is a no-brainer. Bees, birds, and other pollinators will lack the motivation to come to your garden if there are no nectar or pollen-rich flowers to dine on. You should therefore ensure that you have a pollinator-friendly garden with nectar and pollen-rich plants. You can mix blooming annuals, perennials, and shrubs to ensure that a lot of nectar will be available throughout the length of the growing season. It is also advisable to have plant varieties like dill, fennel, and milkweed for butterfly larvae to feed on.
When it comes to growing a pollinator-friendly garden, size is not an issue. If you don’t have a lot of space, gather your collection of a few carefully-selected species which can support a reasonable amount of pollinators. A network of pollinator-friendly gardens can provide enough habitat to restore healthy populations of beneficial insects and pollinators.
Go Organic
A lot of pesticides are highly toxic to bees and other pollinators. Pesticides are essentially poison to insects. Therefore you can’t be offloading them into the same plants you want to use to attract beneficial insects. They might provide a quick solution for your pest issues, but they will also destroy beneficial organisms. Apart from that, spraying plants with many pesticides exposes your family, pets, and wildlife to dangerous chemicals.
If you are interested in maintaining biodiversity and attracting pollinators, it’s better to take an organic gardening approach. This way, your garden will be safer for the bees and other beneficial insect species. There are several ecological plant protection techniques that you can employ. These methods allow you to work alongside nature to ward off pests and diseases. By doing so, you will not only attract and protect pollinators, but you will enjoy a healthier garden and harvest.
Offer Shelter to Pollinators
There are a lot of predators that are out to get butterflies, bees, and other pollinators. You should therefore ensure that by coming to your garden, they won’t risk being eaten. If you want your garden to be a permanent habitat for pollinators, it needs to be a safe environment where they can even raise their young.
Let a section of your lawn grow wild for ground-nesting insects. You can also have a compost area with decomposing grass cuttings on the ground. These are simple methods that will allow the pollinators to hide and protect themselves from predators and harsh weather conditions.
To go all out, you can even provide some artificial nesting boxes. This is an excellent way to increase the population of pollinators in your garden and surrounding area. For this, you can use wooden blocks with holes drilled in the middle.
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Provide Food and Water
While a pollinator garden will provide pollen and nectar, hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies will still need some water. To accommodate them, you can add a birdbath or a catch basin for rain. Butterflies are drawn to muddy puddles in the hopes of finding water, salts, and nutrients.
Choose the Right Flowers
To successfully attract pollinators, you have to have an idea of the flowers they are looking for. As mentioned before, it’s best to choose native plants. If you don’t know which plants to include, you may need to do some research to find out which species of pollinator-friendly flowers are local to you. You can get these plants from native plant nurseries near you.
You don’t need much to attract pollinators. All you need is to be thoughtful and establish a mutually beneficial relationship between yourself and these insects and birds. Ensure that there is enough space, safety, and plenty of flowers for them to visit. You should also be willing to learn and adjust your methods.