Discover the importance of pollinators and how you can help them thrive. This advice includes a different plant you can use for each season, which garden buildings may help your garden to become more pollinator-friendly, and extra helpful tips to make your garden more hospitable for pollinators.
Why are pollinators and pollination important?
Vital Food Source
When pollinators and food are mentioned together, most people will think of honey produced by bees, but the importance of pollinators goes much deeper than that. One out of every three mouthfuls of food humans consume depends on pollination, including fruits, vegetables, and nuts.
Sustainable farming is a way of farming that has the stewardship of the environment at its centre. Pollinators contribute significantly to sustainable farming practices, and, in turn, this farming method is better for pollinators. This means it can be reliably depended on more so than monocultures, intensive tillage and heavy chemical usage seen in depletive farming.
Economic Impact
In the UK alone, insect pollination is estimated to be worth approximately £691 million annually. Wild insects provide free pollination to our crops, helping to reduce the cost of the growing process. In the EU, it is estimated that 84% of crops are reliant on insect pollination.
The threat to pollinators can also impact your personal financial position. A combination of a decline in the pollinator population and a growing human population would mean that demand would outpace naturally producible supply. This would mean an increase in food prices.
Nature and Plants
Pollinators have a reciprocal symbiotic relationship with plants and nature, which make our green spaces all the more beautiful. It is important we do our part in the cycle to keep it thriving.
Angiosperms or flowering plants make up around 90% of the world’s plant species. Of these flowering plant about 80% depend on pollinators to reproduce. This should help show how important pollinators are in sustaining and perpetuating biodiversity.
Threats and Decline
Pollinator populations are declining globally due to habitat loss, pesticide use, disease, and climate change. Read on to find out what you can do to help the pollinators, from the best plants for them to additional methods.
Meet the pollinators
While bees are well-known, there are other pollinators which help plants thrive and are important to our ecosystem. These pollinators include insects, birds, and mammals. For pollination to work the best, it can a diverse range of pollinators are best as it leads to an increase in both the quantity and quality of pollination. Different pollinators will operate at different times and have plant preferences, which makes them all important.
Types of Pollinators
Bees: These pollinators visit the widest variety of flowers and are generally regarded as the most effective pollinators. They seek the nectar, which provides important sugars for them. The pollen they collect provides important nutrients to their larvae. Wasps tend to visit similar plants to bees, but there are some that differ.
Flies: These insects tend to visit the less glamourous plants, which typically have duller colours and worse smells. This shows how variety in pollinators is important for the reproduction of different plants.
Butterflies: Flowers with suitably sized perches are desirable for butterflies, and they also like brightly coloured flowers. Butterflies are competent when reaching flowers with narrow throats as they have long tongues. They tend to be less efficient pollinators than bees.
Beetles and Ants: For ground-level plants, beetles and ants are excellent at providing their pollination services. Such flowers include magnolias and ginkgos.
Moths: As mostly nocturnal animals, it is easy for moths to not be seen as active pollinators, but they are very important in ensuring the pollination of flowers with white and pale colourings. They also tend to prefer to pollinate flowers with a heavy fragrance.
Bats: Another nocturnal pollinator which may be overlooked are bat who visit larger flowers which are pale and fragrant. They contribute to the pollination of many favoured fruits such as mangoes and bananas.
Plants for pollinators in each season
There are many different plants that are suitable for pollinators, from trees to shrubs to flowers, so however you want to design your garden, there should be pollinator-friendly plants available for you. Here are some of our favourites.
Spring Bulb – Bluebell
Bluebells are visited by early-season pollinators like bees, bee-flies and beetles. These flowers require dappled shade which is why they are often found in woodlands.
If such shade is unavailable in your garden you can create it with garden buildings. Bluebells like the early spring sunshine and shade as the weather gets hotter; consider using a combination of a potting shed to help your flowers in colder weather and a gazebo to shelter them in late spring and summer.
Summer Annual – High Tide Blue
High tide blue attracts a wide range of insects and is loved by bees and butterflies alike. To help this plant thrive it is best to sow the seeds indoors; potting sheds make an excellent indoor potting environment.
Autumn Tree – Henry’s Lime
Henry’s lime trees are loved by bees for their late summer blooms, intense fragrance, and high nectar concentration.
Winter Shrub – Gwenllian
Gwenllian is an evergreen shrub, so it will look nice in your garden and attract butterflies and bees. They also produce berries, which are good for feeding birds.
How can having a garden building help?
Potting sheds can help in nurturing the plants that pollinators are so fond of. They offer the perfect place to shelter delicate seedlings until they can be transplanted into the garden come spring or summer.
A pergola can increase your growing space by giving you the infrastructure to grow vertically. Thus expanding your repertoire of plants, which gives you the opportunity to introduce flowers to your garden that can thrive in different seasons.
Extra Tips
Provide a source of shallow clean water for pollinators to drink, cool off in, and maintain hygiene.
Create space for pollinators to find shelter. You can do this by introducing plant which provide the materials needed to make a nest, making a bug hotel or letting meadow areas grow in your garden.
Going pesticide-free is an excellent way to reduce the damage you inflict on pollinators. Try finding different natural alternatives to pesticides, like companion planting. Find out how you can be more eco-friendly and more thrifty in your garden.
Supporting sustainable farming by buying products that contribute to sustainable farming or raise awareness for the importance of sustainable farming.
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