Tag Archives: Native Pollinators

Flowers That Shirk Their Duty

Small but plentiful sedum flowers offer a bee buffet Why Pollenless Plants Are Pointless In recent years, gardeners have found more and more sunflower seed packets labeled as ‘pollen free’ and ‘best’ for cutting. It’s certainly true that pollen-free blossoms … Continue reading

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Protecting & Nurturing Native Bees

Pollinator Garden, one year old and already flourishing On Beyond Honeybees As I was watering the year-old pollinator garden at the Senior Center this morning, I noticed over a dozen kinds of bees busy at work. That made me very … Continue reading

Posted in Gardening With Children, Natural Dyes, Plant Diversity, Pollination Gardens, Pollinators, Sustainable Gardening, Sustainable Living | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Nourishing Native Pollinators

Nectar is not the only attraction in a well stocked garden, so don’t get bugged by bugs. Having a haze of insects hovering over your beds will just about guarantee you a host of birds (even hummers need protein as well as sweet desserts) as well as butterflies. Housing helps too; many grasses (especially stipas) are butterfly friendly host plants, while roses offer building material to leaf cutter bees along with their pollen and nectar. That’s a large part of why I tidy the garden in late winter and early spring rather than in autumn; putting off the work protect and supports native pollinators and when I finally get around to it, there’s a lot less to do, since so much as self-composted in place. Continue reading

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Backyard Permaculture

One important consideration for all who are thinking about creating a more natural garden where insects and critters are welcome is the fact that all critters need water, food and shelter. Unless we have natural ponds or streams, we may need to provide shallow bathing bowls and keep them clean and full of fresh water. Food will be abundant wherever we offer a diversity of plants but providing food and shelter means allowing some visible “damage” to plants we may hold dear. It also means leaving much of the garden undisturbed in winter, when butterflies, frogs, toads and other creatures are hibernating. If you tend toward neatness over the natural, this may be painfully difficult, so one way to ease into a new way of caring for your garden might be to allow sweet disorder to reign in areas you don’t have to look at every day. Keep you entry and walkway as neat as you please and comfort your tidy self with the knowledge that letting go of a little control now will pay a dividend of flourishing garden life in the future Continue reading

Posted in composting, Garden Prep, Growing Berry Crops, Health & Wellbeing, Nutrition, pests and pesticides, Pollinators, Soil, Sustainable Gardening, Sustainable Living | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments