[Pollinator] pollinator food sources

Tue Aug 22 05:00:25 PDT 2017

Hi Lisa and others,

This is the fourth year of our meadow, and the Echinacea is plentiful this year, spreading over half of the meadow. However, the echinacea is mostly past and faded looking. It’s too early for the birds to want the seeds. I’ve been deadheading some of the echinacea to see whether they will grow new flowers. I’m researching to find out how to turn the dried out heads into seeds. 

Bees love Blue Vervain (Verbena hastata) and Joe Pye Weed (Eutrochium purpureum), which are also abundant. In fact, we planted one Vervain three years ago, and we found that it fills in every empty space in the garden. I love its flower structure—like a candelabra—and beautiful, bluish purple intricate flowers, and I recommend planting it anywhere, including open, grassy fields where it could spread all over in a few years.

The Joe Pye Weed is a late-season plant, but this year its flowers are starting to go by three weeks early.
I hope that we can find ways to satisfy the dietary needs of birds and bees.  

From: Lisa Horth 
Sent: Sunday, August 20, 2017 10:33 PM
To: Barbara Passero 
Subject: Re: [Pollinator] pollinator food sources
Very interesting. 
We have not found ways, but i do also notice that here in VA some of what were later season flowers (e.g. Rudbeckia, Echinacea) are getting burnt in August and not lasting through fall like they used to....

Lisa

On Mon, Aug 7, 2017 at 8:16 PM, Barbara Passero <bpassero at meadowmaking.org> wrote:

  Richard Primack, Walden Warming: Climate Change Comes to Thoreau's Woods, and his Boston University research team, examined Thoreau’s and others’ records to show that many plants are blooming earlier in the spring.

  Similarly, we are observing in our pollinator-friendly urban meadow in Waltham, MA, that the flowering season is speeding up. For example, some native goldenrod, milkweed, asters, and other plants, which have been September-November bloomers, are blooming now and presumably will be going by sooner. 

  Many species of pollinators frequent the meadow. Has anyone found ways to ensure that sources of food will be available for bees and butterflies later in the season? 

  Thank you!

  Sincerely, Barbara

  Barbara Passero, Director
  MEADOWSCAPING for Biodiversity
  174 Moody St. #244
  Waltham, MA 02453
  Office: 781-209-0052 Cell: 617-999-9546
  bpassero at meadowmaking.org
  http://www.meadowmaking.org

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Associate Professor
Dept of Biological Science
Old Dominion University
Norfolk, VA 23529

lhorth at odu.edu

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