Garden for Good: Your Patch Makes a Difference
When the headlines proclaim bad news (“2024 was the hottest year on record,” “By 2050 it is estimated there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish,” “Neonic pesticides are responsible for pollinator declines”), it’s easy to feel hopeless about our ability to make a difference. One of the primary threats to pollinators is habitat loss – but there is an upside to this: it’s also one of the easiest problems we can help solve. As gardeners, we are already positioned to help pollinating animals by doing little more than the thing we already love – gardening!
Turn your passion into a force for good; each of us has a patch of land to steward – whether a container garden, a few to a few hundred square feet, or a sizeable property. If each of us made our own patch a little more hospitable for wildlife, imagine collectively what all of those patches could add up to! Connecting our habitats across the larger landscape provides valuable resources to pollinators like the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus), which needs frequent fuel stops along their migratory journey from Mexico into the US and Canada. Additionally, making sure forage and nesting material are available in our own spaces ensures a mason bee (Osmia sp.), with a scant 100-meter home range, can carry out its life cycle, as it may never leave one garden for the duration of its life.
Tip: Check out this guide to help with strategies for building a pollinator garden in your yard.
An Easy Lift for Gardeners
Likely, you are already part of the way there when it comes to creating quality pollinator habitat.
There are three components, many of which you may already have.
- Growing flowering plants that offer nectar and pollen to hungry pollinators? Check
- Have flowers with hollow stems such as Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium purpureum) and wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) growing in your garden? Check.
- Have a fallen log? Have a brush or rock pile in your garden space? Have uncovered bare soil? Check. Check. Check.
Now, reduce or eliminate your use of chemical pest control, and you are providing the most important basics pollinators need in your home garden!
Taking Your Pollinator Garden to the Next Level
No matter where you are on your pollinator-gardening journey, there is always more you can do. It is important to incorporate a diversity of plants – the more the better. Some pollinators are specialists, attracted to certain families of plants. Others are better adapted to feed from flowers with long, slender corolla tubes or large, stable landing platforms. The larval stage of butterflies and moths must feed on a host plant to survive.
Offering a minimum of three blooming plants at any time of the year ensures there is food to eat for the first pollinators emerging in spring through the last active pollinators of the fall. Providing nesting resources for our 4,000 native bees, 90% of which are solitary and extremely unlikely to sting since they have no nest to defend, will ensure they can give rise to the next generation.
TIP: Incorporate a new host plant into your garden each year and watch for caterpillars.
Food Resources
Both native and nonnative, non-invasive plants play a role in supporting pollinators in the garden. Strive to include native plants that have sustained the pollinators they feed on for millions of years. Many of our favorite ornamentals and herbs can also support pollinator health through their nectar and pollen resources; favorites include cosmos, zinnias, salvia, sage, and lavender.
Dill is a wonderful host plant for the black swallowtail butterfly caterpillar (Papilio polyxenes). Just confirm that you aren’t adding plants listed as invasive in your state. If you are incorporating native plants for the first time, check out these regional garden cards for a quick-start recipe for a beginner garden.
Tip: Check out these ecoregional planting guides to find plants that pollinators love in your region! Many of our members have wonderful regional seed mixes to get you started!
Nesting and Shelter
The majority of our native bees nest underground. Intentionally maintaining patches of bare ground will allow them access to the soil surface where they can tunnel underground to build their nest. Avoid the use of landscape fabrics and thick mulch, which creates a barrier for bees to reach the ground. The rest of our native bees nest in cavities, whether pre-drilled beetle excavation burrows in rotting wood or hollowed out pithy stems of spent wildflowers. Allowing dead wood to lie and cutting off spent flower stems at varying heights up to 24” creates stem nesting bee cavities. Help lepidopterans (butterflies and moths) survive the winter by leaving a protective layer of fallen leaves on the ground rather than removing them, which eliminates lots of caterpillars, chrysalids, and adult lepidopterans in the process.
Live in an Apartment?
A containerized pollinator garden can be a valuable food stop in an otherwise inhospitable landscape. Fill a large planter with soil and add flowering plants for a bee buffet! Add a bee house to include nesting space.
Pest Control
There are many categories of pesticides, but the two most likely used by the home gardener include insecticides (targeting insects, such as pollinators) and herbicides (targeting the plants that pollinators depend on). Consider eliminating the use of insecticides, instead relying on the beneficial insects your healthy garden will host, as these will keep pest insects in check naturally.
Reducing or eliminating the use of herbicides preserves food sources our pollinators so desperately need. Consider integrated pest management (IPM), a method of observing the interactions taking place in your garden, learning about the ecological systems at play, and fostering healthy predator/prey interactions. Prophylactic use of chemicals creates an ecologically sterile environment that doesn’t feed bees, butterflies, or birds.
Creating Habitat
There are multiple ways to incorporate habitat into your space, and none of them are a one-size-fits-all approach. It can be as simple as interplanting pollinator plants into existing flower beds, to converting an entire section of your lawn to a new garden area. You can remove sod to expose bare dirt and scatter seeds on the surface in the winter, allowing them to cold stratify and germinate on site in the spring. You can use plants from your local native plant nursery or an online retailer to place them where you want in spring or fall to create a more intentional aesthetic.
Plants will need to be watered in the first year as they establish, but will require little additional moisture after that. Many native plants will take two to three years to really flourish, as they spend the first year or two adding underground roots, which makes them so hardy. Mulching new plants will help retain moisture and reduce weed pressure; living ground covers will fill in eventually and do this job for you.
Join Pollinator Partnership’s Bee Friendly Gardening program to find inspiration and connect with a community of like-minded pollinator gardeners.
Don’t let the headlines get you down. If we each tend our space in a way that benefits wildlife, collectively we can make a big difference.
Happy Pollinator Gardening!
Written by: Pollinator Partnership
“This post is an educational/inspirational service of the National Garden Bureau and our members. Please credit and link to National Garden Bureau when using all or parts of this article.”
Check out more information on pollinator gardening:
- What’s the Buzz? Boost Pollination in Your Garden for a Great Harvest
- Creating a Butterfly & Moth Garden
- 10 Tips for Successful Pollinator Plantings
- Pretty, portable pollinator gardens: Top 10 plants for pollinator-friendly containers
- Beneficial Wasps and You
- Wildflower Seeds for Fall Planting: Tips and Tricks
- Surprising Facts about the Inner World of Bees
- 10 New Plants to Create a Multi-Season Hummingbird Haven
