Pollinators are small mammals, birds, bats, bees, butterflies, beetles and other insects that transfer pollen from plant to plant, thus fertilizing them and helping them reproduce, are pollinators. Since most of life on earth depends on plants, pollinators are essential to life. This blog post includes helpful information about how you can support pollinators in your yard.

Plant Native Flowers to Support Native Pollinators

Pollinators and plants evolve together in an ecosystem. Plants develop ways to attract pollinators, such as beautiful scents and colourful flowers. The shapes of the flowers evolve so that pollinators will pick up the maximum amount of pollen from every interaction – usually when they sip nectar or eat pollen from the flower. So native plants and pollinators need each other to be most healthy.

Caron Wenzel, an ecological restoration expert in Illinois, told me years ago that for pollinators a native plant is like a neon diner sign flashing “Eat Here!”  Pollinators will also go to cultivar plants – plants that have been bred over time from native stock to be more colourful or have larger blooms. Pollinators are most well fed, though, from native plants.

I usually design and plant a variety of cultivars and of natives and am planting more natives these days, not just to support the pollinators, but also to preserve the plants for the long-term future.

Plant Flowers with Colours Pollinators Can See

Bees are an important pollinator. They find plants using vision and can best see violet to blue, white and yellow flowers. Plant flowers that are these colours to support bees.

Plant Flowers that Bloom at Different Times to Support Pollinators

One key way to support pollinators in your yard is to have plants that bloom from very early in the growing season to very late in the season. Dandelions are one early bloomer. If you want to manage your dandelion population, you can support pollinators by letting them bloom and then pulling off the heads once they are white and fluffy and ready to go to seed, or waiting until then to weed them out.

Early blooming perennial flowers that are native are Prairie Crocus, Three-flowered Avens, Early Blue Violet and Slender Beardtongue.

Most flowers and plants bloom in late spring or summer.  Dalea, or Purple Prairie Clover, is a fun flower that is a food source for native bumble bees in summer. Showy Milkweed is another native that Monarch Butterflies feed from. Blanketflower used to blanket the prairies and native pollinators of many species love it. Blue Flax is easy to grow and will self seed and spread. Nodding onion is a native flower that will feed you too with its sweet tasty stalks and flowers. Fleabanes of many types are a native daisy like flower. Harebells create a blue, purple haze effect on the Morley Flats on the Mînî Thnî reserve between Calgary and Banff and will add colour a  sweet note to your yard. Beebalm, or Bergamot, is the plant that Earl Grey tea is made from and it is very attractive to many pollinators.

Annual sunflowers can take over your garden and provide food for pollinators and for birds in the winter. Annual/ Biennial Rocky Mountain Beeplant will also spread and is a favourite of native butterflies and bees.

Some late blooming perennial flowers are Solidago (Goldenrod), Asters, and Liatris. Native and cultivar varieties are both available for these flowers. Goldenrod can spread a lot so best to plant it where that will not be an issue, or plant it in a container in the ground with holes in it and lined with landscape fabric, or put a barrier in the soil around it. It spreads by seeds as well as roots so it’s also good to cut the seed heads off after it has finished blooming.

Provide Shelter,  Water, and Building Materials for Pollinators

Providing flowers throughout the growing season helps feed pollinators. It is also helpful to provide shelter. Spreading leaves on your flowerbeds in the Fall protects your plants over winter. Leaving those leaves on your beds in the Spring until night temperatures are regularly above freezing provides shelter for pollinating insects. Leaving a bit of leaf or other debris around for shelter after that is helpful too.

Shallow water dishes with flat rocks that insects can land on,  or little mud ponds, provide water sources for pollinators and also building materials for Mason Bees. Mason Bees are native bees that are solitary and live in tunnels. A trend the last few years has been to put up little Mason Bee houses. I did this for years too, until I read a David Suzuki Foundation article that these houses can be detrimental to Mason Bees. If not cleaned and sanitized properly every year in the Fall, Mason Bee houses harbour mites and diseases. It is better to leave some open soil and building materials, such as plant debris, around for Mason Bees and other bees to make their own homes. Best to do your plant clean-up in the Spring – leaving plant stalks to overwinter to provide for pollinators and also to feed overwintering birds.

Avoid using Pesticides – Go Organic!

Pesticides and herbicides will kill insects and often end up killing birds and mammals that eat the insects too. My mentor Ken Wright taught me that insect infestations come and go – some years there will be more of certain insects and nature usually balances it out. Besides being harmful to the health of all living beings, pesticides interfere with nature’s balancing mechanisms. And that insect you don’t like, for example wasps, may be providing benefits you haven’t noticed – such as eating excess aphids. I have found that fake cloth wasp nests work to keep wasps from nesting near my patio where I like to sit and eat without sharing my food with wasps.

Where to Buy Native Flowers

We have two great native plant suppliers in the Calgary area: Wild About Flowers near Black Diamond and ALCLA Native Plants in Carstairs. Both will mail plants to you and can ship across Canada. You can also schedule appointments to visit their nurseries. They also both have great websites with lots of information on the plants. Wild about Flowers website has a plant selection tool that I use regularly when designing.

Let’s all do our part to preserve and restore native plants and provide habitat and food for native pollinators.