[Pollinator] Gardening for Pollinators

Thu Apr 14 06:09:20 PDT 2016

As you no doubt realize, April is National Gardening Month. Are you looking
for inspiration for yourself or information to share with neighbors and
social media friends? Here’s a nice article from NWF’s National Wildlife
magazine about pollinator gardening.

Matthew

******************************

FROM: National Wildlife magazine

http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/Gardening/Archives/2016/Gardening-for-Pollinators.aspx

*Gardening for Pollinators*

*Invite native bees to share your garden and grow bigger, better fruits and
veggies*

03-30-2016 // Cynthia Berger

*WHEN I FIRST STARTED TO GARDEN FOR WILDLIFE* at my home in central
Pennsylvania, I was thinking about birds. I planted native trees and
fruiting shrubs for the local wrens and towhees, which love the nest sites,
berries and caterpillars that native plants support. But as every gardener
knows, a garden is never done! This spring I’m planting for pollinators
<http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/Gardening/Archives/2010/Native-Plants-for-Pollinators.aspx>
.

At first I just wanted to help native bees
<http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/Gardening/Archives/2009/The-Buzz-on-Native-Pollinators.aspx>
. *Many of North America’s more than 4,000 species are declining*,
including more than a quarter of native bumble bees such as the western
bumble bee and the rusty patched bumble bee. But creating pollinator
habitat doesn’t just help the bees; it also helps your fruits and
vegetables.

*Common crops that benefit from healthy populations of pollinators *include
apples, cherries, blueberries, tomatoes, eggplants, peppers and pumpkins.
“It’s a win for wildlife and for gardeners: bigger produce and more square
footage for habitat,” says Mary Phillips
<http://blog.nwf.org/author/phillipsm/>, director of the National Wildlife
Federation’s
Garden for Wildlife™ program
<http://www.nwf.org/How-to-Help/Garden-for-Wildlife.aspx>.

*Miniature Crop Dusters*

All bees visit flowers for nectar and nutritious pollen. In the process,
bees move pollen from anthers (male flower parts) to ovaries (female
parts), helping flowers set seed and make fruit. But*native bees are more
effective pollinators than nonnative honey bees*, and body structure plays
a role. Where honey bees pack pollen into tidy baskets on their legs, most
native bees are like little flying dust mops: Pollen clings to hairs on
their bodies and easily brushes off, so flowers get pollinated more
completely.

Behavior can also play a role. Native blue orchard bees are more willing to
fly when it’s cold and damp. And whereas honey bees will visit a single
fruit tree methodically going from flower to flower, orchard bees flit from
tree to tree, resulting in the cross-pollination some trees need to set
fruit. Bumble bees also do a nifty trick honey bees don’t called “buzz
pollination”: They vibrate their flight muscles at the exact frequency
needed to shake pollen loose from anthers.

Blueberries are one crop that benefits. When researchers at Michigan State
University planted wildflowers around high-bush blueberry fields to attract
native pollinators, they saw the wild bee population double within two
years and *blueberry yields increase up to 20 percent.*

Claire Kremen <https://nature.berkeley.edu/kremenlab/>, a researcher at the
University of California–Berkeley who studies how creating habitat for
native pollinators helps farm crops, notes that tomatoes don’t need bees
because they can self-pollinate. “But when tomatoes get regular visits from
buzz pollinators,” she says, “they make *more and bigger tomatoes*—up to a
50 percent increase in yield and tomatoes twice as big.”

Kremen’s research shows that *strips of wildflowers interspersed with farm
fields are especially effective* at increasing populations of native
pollinators. This approach “totally translates to the backyard,” she says.
In her yard, she places native flowering shrubs from California’s chaparral
ecosystem (such as California lilac and coffeeberry) around the edge of her
yard with her veggie garden in the middle.

For your garden, *choose locally native perennials
<http://www.nwf.org/How-to-Help/Garden-for-Wildlife/Gardening-Tips/Using-Native-Plants.aspx>
*of
yellow, blue or purple, the colors most attractive to bees. Variety is also
important. “Different pollinators are active at different times in the
growing season,” Kremen says. “A variety of bees will do a better job
pollinating your garden than one species alone. If you grow different
flowers, there’s always something blooming to attract them.”

*Tips to Lure Pollinators*

Don’t have room for new flowerbeds? Judy Seaborn, co-founder of the organic
seed company Botanical Interests,*plants herbs* like basil and cilantro in
her vegetable beds, then lets some of the herbs flower for the bees.
“Thyme, oregano and borage flowers also attract pollinators,” she says.

*Bees drink water as well as nectar*, so Seaborn created a water feature
for them—a large flat stone with a shallow basin. “When I water the garden,
I make sure to splash the stone to fill the basin. Bees really like it,”
she says.

Mace Vaughan <http://www.xerces.org/staff/> gardens for pollinators even
though he lives on a shady lot in rainy Portland, Oregon. The co-director
of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation’s Pollinator Program
did some research to identify *shade-tolerant, flowering native plants and
left patches of soil exposed under hedges* to attract ground-nesting bees.
“Now tons of bees visit,” he says, to the benefit of his raspberries and
blueberries.

Beyond benefiting bees and your garden, native bees are fun to watch —and
these visitors change with the seasons. You’ll see metallic green mason
bees or furry little mining bees in spring, squash bees darting after mates
in midsummer and long-horned bees in late summer, with antennae that make
them look like tiny antelopes. I’m looking forward to seeing more of this
menagerie in my own garden when I plant for pollinators. Why don’t you join
me? You’ve got nothing to lose . . . and bigger, better cherry tomatoes to
gain.

*Longtime contributor Cynthia Berger wrote about urban wildlife
<http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/Animals/Archives/2015/Urban-Biodiversity.aspx>
in
the February-March 2015 issue.*

________

*Matthew Shepherd*

Communications Director

*[image: Xerces-logo-CMYK-email_Outlook]*

*Protecting the Life that Sustains Us*

Stay in touch:     *xerces.org <http://www.xerces.org/>*      *Xerces blog
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