Pollinator Habitat

The plight of pollinators has gained more attention recently. A lot of attention is focused on honey bees, but many people don't realize that honey bees are not native to North America. They were brought here from Europe by early settlers. They are important as pollinators for agricultural crops, but there are many wild, native plants that need native pollinators. These include native bees, wasps, flies, beetles, spiders, birds, bats, and even some lizards.

I have a lot of annual wildflowers that need to produce seeds every year. Thus, they need pollinators. The native pollinators have specific requirements for nesting habitat where they can deposit their eggs. If I want to keep them happy in my garden, I need to provide nesting areas for them. Fortunately, the Xerces Society is really on top of this issue and has tons of information on their web site. I highly recommend the organization for anyone interested in an ecological approach to gardening. In my research, I began with this document.  One of the suggestions that I found interesting is the use of hollow stemmed plant stalks as nesting spaces. Many plants have hollow or pithy stems that native pollinators can utilize. Xerces recommends leaving some of the stems standing when doing garden clean-up, and don't be too thorough in cleaning up. So I'm now giving it a try.

The above photos show stems of Clarkia unguiculata that have finished flowering and gone to seed. This area looks pretty barren now, but 2 months ago it was full of flowering Clarkia. I also have a Yucca schidigera and a couple of Cercocarpus minutiflorus here to give it some year-round interest.

Below are more Clarkia stems that I stuck into some cracks in a railroad tie to serve the same purpose. They are in various lengths as recommended by Xerces.

Below is a cut stem of Romneya coulteri.  I always cut this back after it has finished blooming, but I used to cut it very short. Now I'm going to leave some longer in case a pollinator wants a taller stem to nest in. Romneya stems have a soft pith which bees and wasps should be able to chew through easily. 

Bamboo can also be used this way. My neighbor was disposing of a lot of relatively small stems which I collected. Using various lengths and diameters, I placed this bundle of stalks in the grape vine which I am hoping will be an attraction to pollinators.

In general, I think my garden is working well for pollinators. I'm judging this by the amount of seed produced by my annual wildflowers. The last photo shows the Clarkia fruit/seeds that I have collected this summer, and this is only a fraction of the seeds that were produced.