Charity’s Spring Garden Tips for Pollinators
Spring is here, and if you’re reading this, you’re probably like me and thinking about the gardening season ahead of us - and wondering how we can use the space to improve habitat for native bees (and other pollinators)! There are so many posts online about things we can do to support pollinators. Many are very good, many are very vague, and many are potentially harmful for native bees. I’m going to focus on bees in this article, but know that the things we do to improve spaces for native bees will also improve spaces for other pollinators, as well as other invertebrates that are not pollinators but still help us out in many ways. I’m a learner, too, still trying to make the best decisions I can. Rather than reiterate others’ works, I’m going to share what I have noticed in my own garden near the centre of Red Deer.
The north side of my house still has ice and snow, but the goldenrod in my front garden is already breaking out of dormancy and ready to get going!
Consider growing native plants. Not only are they going to be tougher (more tolerant of our climate conditions) than garden cultivars, they have established relationships with native bees during their peak flowering period.
If you’re not sure which native plants do best in your area, we put together some great resources to help you get started on our Native Plant Resources page. Our Top 12 list includes those which are (likely) easiest to find, give the best bang for your bud (as far as native bees will enjoy) and are pretty easy to get going. We also have a more comprehensive list for those with a bit more ambition, but both of these lists provide information about their best habitat, so you can find what you’ll have the best success with in your garden. We also have a spreadsheet of places to source native plants from independent growers here in Alberta!
If you are the kind of person who likes to have a bit of extra community support or maybe some accountability to help motivate you, consider joining the Alberta Native Plant Council’s (ANPC) Native Plant Garden Challenge. The challenge is to convert a 1 m2 size space in your yard to native plant habitat, and by joining you are given access to a Toolkit, some grower discounts, and a community through the challenge’s Facebook Page. This year’s challenge will kick off during their 36th annual Workshops event (happening April 20th). While the focus is on enabling folks to start to learn about and practice native plant stewardship, doing so will also have the happy side-effect of enabling native bee forage.
A ground-nesting male Confusing sweat bee (Halictus confusus) enjoying some Thyme flowers in my garden.
We know that native bees need diverse, native food (and they do), they also need wild-ish spaces to nest in. Approximately 70% of our native bees are ground nesting, and when we mulch, till, and plant ground cover, we reduce the available spaces for them to access. Of course, nature abhors a vacuum, so leaving bare ground can feel counterintuitive in our yard spaces (surely weeds will take over?), but fortunately, there are happy medium spaces that can work in everyone’s favour. Paving stones or sidewalk blocks often provide a suitable space for us to walk, but also a suitable (compacted, untilled) space for ground nesting bees underneath in drier patches. As a garden develops established patch of native perennials, we won’t be tilling the area, they generally require a bit of extra spacing between them, and if we consider forgoing mulch (as the leaf cover during peak summer heat will do the job of shading & cooling the soil for us) -it will let those small digging bees access the soil more easily.
A bumble bee in my ‘Floristan White’ (Liatris spicata).
If you’re unable to acquire native plants this season (for whatever reason), a good option for native bees is to look for garden cultivars that have native-kin, for example, Liatris species. Alberta has a native Liatris ligulistylis and a common garden perennial is Liatris spicata which does well in my Red Deer garden. As far as conservation goes, yes, the native species is a good goal to have in your garden, but until you get a patch established, you’re not a bad person if you reach for the bag of corms of the greenhouse cultivar at your local hardware or nursery -especially if you’re selecting it over a flower that doesn’t support bees at all.
Try to have fun! I often find that as soon as something feels like a chore, I struggle to keep motivated to keep working on it, and with a large yard, that could end in disaster (either turning into a field of weeds that the neighbours complain about or just giving up and putting it all back to lawn). I’ve managed to keep myself engaged by looking for ways to bring natural elements in (such as logs for path borders rather than bricks), savouring the process of transformation rather than focusing on the goal (especially since a garden is a living thing and always changing), and by hiding dinosaurs. Yes, you read that right. As my kids shifted to teens and we were clearing out old toys, we accumulated a stash of plastic dinosaurs which, on a silly whim, I decided to place around the garden to see how long it took them to notice. Since then, I’ve made it my goal to keep adding to the repertoire, as it has become something that makes me smile while I’m out there working, and it has serendipitously led to somewhat of a challenge for the pack of younger kids that live on my block. They like to hunt for them, see who can find the most, and keep me updated, -they also tell me about the cool bugs they see and I think that’s a pretty great way to get kids interested in caring about nature. Other neighbours of the adult variety have also noticed them, and they’ve been an unexpected conduit to some interesting conversations about what I’ve been doing in the yard and the conservation mindset that drives me. We’ve swapped clumps of perennials and one neighbour who gave me a chunk of their milkweed sent me an excited message last spring -monarch butterflies showed up, and later there were caterpillars! I haven’t had monarchs in my patch yet, but I’ve seen a LOT of bees enjoying the flowers in the meantime and I know every neighbour I’ve chatted with has been thinking more about native bees in their gardens.
Monarch butterflies aren’t the only ones who benefit from the patch of Swampy Milkweed -can you see all 4 bees?
Overall, my own approach to bee-gardening is to learn as I go, use the time that I have, and let go of perfectionism. It’s incredibly disheartening to feel like we’re not doing enough, so I encourage you to consider that whatever you do each season builds upon the season before, and doing what you can is more than worrying about what you can’t. Not everyone has the means, whether money, time, space, or physical ability to make big changes to big spaces, but every bit counts.