A few precautions to help the birds, bees, butterflies, and bugs in your garden.
Pollinators are an essential part of our garden’s success. Seventy-five percent of all plants depend on pollinators. We’re all aware, I suspect, of the dangers facing pollinators and read our share of articles and books explaining how to plant and maintain gardens that attract pollinators: birds, bees, butterflies, and our less popular friends, bugs.
So, rather than go over lists of the pollinators’ favorite flowers and bushes, I have four cautions or advisories you may want to know when gardening with “The Four Bs” in mind.
Number 1: To feed or not to feed, that may be the question.
If you’re luring pollinators to your garden, particularly birds, plan to provide food and water all year long, including winter months. Bees hibernate. Butterflies may too. Bugs go underground where they sometimes hibernate. If you’ve provided a sanctuary with food and water all summer, the birds may choose to stick around instead of migrating.
In the autumn you’ll either need to find ways to discourage the cardinals, jays, bluebirds, and finches from staying, or you’ll have to provide their necessities all winter long.
Discouraging techniques: If you plan to spend the winter away from home, think about removing some of your garden’s tempting treats in autumn. Stop filling the bird feeders; remove and clean out the birdhouses. If you’ve provided a fountain or a birdbath, drain and clean it. Make your garden less inviting. If birds stay anyway, they will have found ways to feed themselves and locate water. (If you’re home, occasionally during the long, cold winter, you can put out a suet cake or pans of seed and water. But only randomly unless you plan to keep up the kindness.)
Winter Provisioning techniques: Spending the winter in Maryland can be daunting. Watching our feathered friends enjoy our feeders and birdbaths becomes one of winter’s joys. But it is essential that food and water are consistently provided. If the sources of food and water on which they depend disappear, they may die. Think of the birds as pets that live outdoors. If you go away for more than a day, ask a neighbor or friend to stop by to fill the birdfeeder and refresh the water. (You may want to invest in a birdbath water heater.)
Number 2: Beware of hidden poisons.
When buying new plants and shrubs for your garden, know your grower, buy your plants from the source. If you are using a professional gardening service, ask if they can vouch for the safety of their growers’ plants. Birds, bees, butterflies, and bugs are extremely susceptible to poisoning by pesticides and chemicals. While you may be very careful to avoid using pesticides in your garden, plants introduced into your garden may carry death warrants for your wild friends, and sometimes even for your pets.
Neonicotinoid chemicals are often used by large-scale growers to protect seedlings and young plants. Since the chemicals are applied long before they’re sent to be sold in big box and hardware stores, usually the neonicotinoid or other chemical pesticides or fertilizers are not identified nor are warning signs put up by the sellers. You could buy a flat of lovely young bee balm and discover too late that they were laced with a lethal chemical.
Number 3: Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink!
Birds, bees, and butterflies are not waders! Even though they ingest liquid nectar, they still need fresh water. They need Puddling Stations. Let’s consider how each of these creatures procures water:
1. Birds must be able to stand on a dry or slightly damp surface while leaning forward to take water in their beaks. 2. Bees stand in very shallow water and extend a straw-like appendage (a nose) that inhales water. 3. Butterflies also use a straw-like mouth part. They must settle on a dry or almost-dry surface close to the water without getting their wings wet! 4. Bugs get most of their water from the plants they eat, so we needn’t worry about those little imps.
Check your fountain, pond, or birdbath. Be sure it has relatively dry resting places that are very near the water’s surface. You could add a few flat stones in the birdbath. Perhaps devise a platform around the fountain’s edge. Reorganize the steppingstones or pavers around the edge of your pond so that all these little guys can safely drink the water they need.
Number 4: A plague of riches!
Unless you have a very savvy professional gardener or you are an experienced gardener yourself, you may be unaware of the headaches you may be planting when you add ornamental grasses and some attractive shrubs to your Pollinator Garden. Yes, the grass provides seeds and cover for little creatures. Yes, the bushes may produce berries that can feed feathered friends. BUT, beware!
Ornamental grasses are lovely and graceful. They’re easy to grow and settle in happily. It’s that “settling in” that gets us in trouble. Each year the ball or tussock at the base of the grasses gets thicker and wider. After a few years you will have a very difficult time dividing the clump or even paring it down to a more manageable size. These tussocks must be addressed yearly and severely chopped to retain control. These grasses are ruthless, and less inviting to the little creatures as they grow more dense.
Ornamental and berry-bearing bushes may have a similar flaw. Burning bushes and winterberry, for example, are lovely to look at, but they are not native, and they spread and invade areas of your garden and the gardens and woods beyond.
All these cautions are just my effort to help you and your pollinators live in harmony in your garden.
