Pollinators Ideas, Tips & Guides

Flowers are beautiful, bringing a splash of color to our gardens and veggie patches. But there’s so much more to them than just beauty alone.Flowers play a key role in our ecosystem, they can be

Red maples, lavender henbit, and yellow dandelions are blooming, all early signs that spring’s explosion of color is merely one month away. Why is spring so colorful? What mysterious force drives plants to develop so many different flower sizes, shapes, colors, and fragrances? The primary answer is their pollinators.

Late summer and early fall are great times to plant perennials, making it an excellent opportunity to add more pollinator plants to your landscape.

I HAD WORD FROM OUT SOUTH DAKOTA WAY today that my friend Andre Jordan, master doodler, is soon to become a beekeeper, too–that he’s thinking meadow more than manicured backyard, and yes, maybe even a hive someday.

It begins with a dedication that includes these words:“…to everyone who tears up their front yard to plant big chaotic wildflower gardens, to farmers who think hedgerows and wildflower field borders are just as important as crops, to urban planners and landscapers wh

I have the pleasure of interviewing entomologists and ecologists pretty regularly on my public radio program and podcast, and in 2018 a few conversations touched on my question about what insects are after.The year ends in my northern garden with outdoor insect activity at its low point, but I’ve nevertheless been thinking of them, and of some key takeaways from interviews this past year about “the little things that run the world,” as Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson famously called insects and other invertebrates. I rounded

As far as planning the perfect summer garden goes, even the most novice of gardeners know the basic necessities: sunlight, water, and healthy soil. If you really want your garden to thrive, though, you need to plant the right mix of plants, too.

Each morning my partner, Steve, and I head up to our rooftop to greet the bees as they begin their days’ work. After all, time is honey. While I sometimes struggle to spend 15 minutes saying my morning hello before heading off to work, the pollinators are always up there, rain or shine, all day and all night, whether we’re up there enjoying our garden or not. Ultimately, that’s why we opted to design our outdoor space with a larger ecological agenda in mind.

Among the great joys of summer living are the colours and perfumes of garden beds and containers. But there is another important consideration when it comes to our garden plantings: the attraction of pollinators.

Invite these Pollinators to Have the Most Productive Garden and maximize your garden’s yield. Discover how attracting these valuable creatures can enhance your gardening experience and ensure bountiful harvests for years to come.

The review bus has ambled down the lane and I'm delighted I'm the next stop on the blog tour for Jean Vernon's latest book Attracting Garden Pollinators. It's great to have a volume which covers all kinds of insect pollinators — as well as bees — as the importance of many of them is often overlooked for our gardens.In the opening chapters stuffed with fascinating insights we find: without wasps we wouldn't have any bees (they evolved from them); some bees nest in snail shells as well as thrushes liking to find them (the snails that is); and hoverflies are highly useful pollinators as well chomping away at those pesky aphids. Jean neatly shows how i

We gardeners are becoming more aware of our changing world, not just the climate but also the habitat reduction for pollinators. Landscape designers are becoming more aware and responding by adding more pollinating plants to designs. How to integrate more pollinating plants into a mature garden is a bigger challenge. Here is a short list of simple but effective ways to help pollinators survive and be useful in our gardens:

Chelsea Flower Show is back to its regular May slot for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic took hold and I shall once again be volunteering on an RHS Feature Garden. I’m particularly excited this year because the garden concerned is the ‘BBC Studios #OurGreenPlanet & RHS Bee Garden’. Designed by Joe Swift and situated at the bottom of Main Avenue, the garden is the product of a partnership between the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) and BBC Earth.

Companion planting with flowers is the easiest technique to have a healthy harvest with the least effort. So, if you are planning one, check out the handpicked list of the Best Flowers for Attracting Pollinators to a Vegetable Garden!

Creating a lush garden brings an outdoor living space to life, and the best plants for the job are native varieties that teem with beneficial pollinators like bees, butterflies, and moths.While both native and non-native fragrant flowers

Supporting pollinators in the garden is so important for the natural ecosystem and for producing vegetables and fruits. Even if you don’t grow food, you should provide plants that encourage pollinators to support their numbers, which in some instances are dwindling. Choosing the right plants is important, but equally crucial is avoiding plants that are harmful to bees or simply unappealing.