Pollinator Protection Project: Plants for Pollinators

Since signing the Pollinator Protection Pledge at the end end of June, Anouk, James and I have been hard at work on fulfilling our promise to make our backyard into a more friendly place for the birds, bats, and bees. The first step was to make sure our garden was chock-full of pollinator-friendly flowers. While our yard currently sports a vegetable garden and several blooming fruit trees, we still wanted to bring in outside plants to supplement our current ones. Because more is always better, right?

After a little research -- and some advice from helpful garden center staff -- we came home with half a dozen new plants and some hints to share about how to choose flowers that will be the most attractive to your neighborhood pollinators. Here they are, below.

• Think pink (and red, and blue...) Each pollinator is most attracted to a certain color range of flowers. For instance, bees prefer yellow and blue flowers, while hummingbirds prefer reds and pinks and butterflies will be attracted to blossoms in the violet range. We made sure to choose plants in several color ranges, but to concentrate our choices in ones that would be most appealing. 

• Go for three of a kind. The more plants you have, the more likely you are to attract pollinators to your space. Ideally, to attract the greatest number of pollinators, you would plant in masses of five or more plants in the same color spectrum. However, for a lot of gardeners with limited yard or patio space, this isn't an option. A good rule of thumb is to place at least three flowering plants of the same color range on each doorstep (front, back, side if you have a side door).

• Do double duty. The space in our backyard is limited, so we made an effort to choose plants that would appeal to more than one pollinator. Our big, bountiful buddeleja (butterfly bush) is also a favorite of bees. Our salvia bush is one of the top plants for hummingbirds, but also attracts the insects that bats eat. And the deep flared flowers of the hummingbird plant (AKA Dicliptera suberecta) will appeal to butterflies as well as its namesake.

• Party hardy. Because our pollinators will need food throughout the summer months, we chose plants that are cool-weather hardy, and will bloom late into the season. Asters, shasta daisies, bee balm, trumpet vine, and blanketflower (gallardia) will all bloom throughout the summer and well into the fall.  

• Stay up all night. Don't forget the late-night pollinators like moths (which are often overlooked). Many daytime flowers close their buds at night, but there are plants that will blossom in the evening. Evening primrose, moonflowers, and flowering tobacco are all examples (we planted a patch of cheerful four-o'-clocks for just this reason). 

A few of our transplanted flowers are looking a little ragged in the heat, but we've still seen an increased number of butterflies (a few gorgeous swallowtails!), bees, and flying ants (?) buzzing around them. Anouk no longer screams when she sees a bee, but says, "Hi! Hi!" I guess those bee-friendly books are really changing her attitude?

Have you signed the Pollinator Protection Pledge? Do you have any pollinator-friendly plants in your garden?