[Pollinator] Bring on the bees

[Sunny Boyd]

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/plants-154781-ocprint-bees-native.html

 

 


Bring on the bees


By MARTY ROSS <mailto:> 

2012-01-21 00:00:00

 
<http://www.ocregister.com/articles/plants-154781-ocprint-bees-native.html?p
ic=1> 

The very first flowers of the season give gardeners a big thrill, but they
are huge news for the bees, too. The buzz these days is about bees and their
crucial importance.

Bees need our help: They're critical pollinators - alongside butterflies and
hummingbirds - but they're misunderstood, says Stephen Buchmann, a bee
expert and coordinator of the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign.
Butterflies don't require a public relations program, but bees do. Many
people are afraid of bee stings and think bees are aggressive, but Buchmann
says when bees visit a garden, they're really not interested in people. They
come for the buffet of bloom.

"They're collecting food," Buchmann says. "You can stick your nose right up
to a bee in a flower and it's not going to fly up in your face and sting
you."

A good-looking and hardworking insectary garden, a garden designed to
attract bees and other pollinators, will increase your harvest of apples,
okra, blueberries and beans. Insectary gardens also play a vital role in
preserving the diversity of ecosystems in modern times. Native plants, which
provide food and nectar for many more insects than non-native plants do, are
the foundation of a pollinator-friendly garden.

Fortunately, finding great native pollinator plants gets easier every year.
Growers and suppliers are always adding to their selections of native
plants. The National Wildlife Federation and other organizations, including
the NAPPC, actively promote the beauty and utility of native plants. Such
organizations have developed regional plant lists, garden plans and even new
apps for smartphones and tablets to help gardeners on the go find, choose
and plant the best native plants for bees, butterflies and other
pollinators.

Most gardeners are not ready to give up beloved non-native flowers like
tulips and daffodils, but once you start looking around your garden, you're
likely to see that the daisies, asters, sunflowers and other native blooms
that bees and butterflies love are already some of your own favorites, too.
The exuberant and colorful cottage-garden style, with lots of different
kinds of trees, shrubs and flowers, and with edible plants and herbs planted
right in among them or close by, is just as attractive to pollinators as it
is to us.

Pollinators depend on combinations of plants that bloom from spring through
summer and fall, says Nadia Navarrete-Tindall, a native plants extension
specialist at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Mo. She grows butterfly
milkweed, mountain mint, asters, goldenrod and dozens of other native plants
in her own informal garden, but these plants will all work in more formal
landscapes, too. You don't have to have a large garden to help pollinators,
she says. A single flowerpot or a window box will attract bees and
butterflies and help restore a little bit of the habitat that has been lost
to development.

"Just a pot with two or three native plants is enough," Navarrete-Tindall
says, "You'll be amazed how butterflies and little bees and other insects
will find your plants."

Lots of plants that butterflies frequent are also good plants for bees.
Butterfly milkweed (the Latin name is "Asclepias," and there are about 100
native species in North America) is essential for monarch butterflies, which
eat only the leaves of milkweed plants. These plants also produce rich
nectar attractive to bees, beetles and other pollinators. "If you don't have
a milkweed in your garden, plant one," Navarrete-Tindall suggests. "It's a
good way to get started."

Native plants don't always get the attention they deserve, says Steve
Castorani, owner of American Beauties, a brand of native trees, shrubs and
flowers sold at garden shops across the country. There are lots of great
natives that are not well known and deserve much more attention, he says.
Blueberries, which are attractive and tough landscape plants, provide lots
of pollen for bumblebees, honeybees and other pollinator bees, he says.
Castorani recommends mountain mint for bee gardens, as well as summer- and
fall-blooming ageratums and Joe-pye weed, whose showy flowers are often
covered with butterflies and bees.

Stop imagining bees as dangerous and aggressive, Buchmann says, and think of
them as watchable wildlife. When you plant native plants, you "create some
bee pasture," he says, and when you look at bees up close, "you'll see they
are beautiful, with greens and blues and fantastic behaviors you can watch."
Showy flowers attract lots of bees, and that's as it should be: they're here
to help.

 

 

Sunny Boyd

Webmaster

Pollinator Partnership

423 Washington St., 5th Floor

San Francisco, CA  94111

T:  415.362.1137

F:  415.362.3070

E.  sun at pollinator.org

W.  <http://www.pollinator.org/> www.pollinator.org

 
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