tips for your garden: planting for pollinators
An unexpected side-effect of the Covid lockdown has been the proliferation of wildflowers along our roadsides. The lack of mowing and spraying has meant many native species like cow parsley, campion and dandelions have been seen in beautiful swathes, providing essential habitats and sustenance for a host of pollinators that are essential to our planet.
There are also a number of ways that we can help and encourage these important insects within our garden environment. As development swallows up more and more natural habitats, our garden ecosystems are more important than ever. The thought of wildlife gardening may conjure up images of an unruly mess, a mass of nettles and brambles; true, this can be great for wildlife, but a tidy garden can also be full of life. At College, having wild, unkempt areas would be frowned upon, so everything is fairly organised, but also alive with birdsong and the hum of bees.
So, what can we do, and not do, to make our gardens as welcoming to wildlife, pollinators in particular, as possible? We can reduce or eliminate our use of harmful chemicals in the garden. We can supply food, water, and opportunities to provide shelter for them. Just one mature oak tree can support as many as 284 different species of insects, from aphids and moths to beetles and weevils; however, having a large range of plants is even better. Diversity is very important, and the longer the plants flower throughout the year, the better. For example, we expect to see bees all summer when flowers are plentiful, but early Queen Bumblebees and Buff-tailed Bumblebees are out in winter and they need feeding too. Winter flowering plants like lungwort (pulmonaria) and winter flowering bulbs provide vital early nectar. At Queen’s, our first flowers of the year are hellebores and snowdrops in early January, then crocus, pulmonaria, scilla, narcissus, winter shrubs like coronilla, mahonia, viburnum, daphne, sarcococca and rosemary. These all provide much-needed food at a crucial time and some have the most wonderfully scented flowers.
As the year warms up, there are more and more plants to choose from. To appeal to the largest assortment of pollinators, we want to choose a wide array of flower shapes. Long-tongued bumblebees favour deep flowers, like foxgloves and aquilegias, whereas short-tongued varieties prefer smaller flowers such as nepeta and lavender. Borage and thyme are great for honey bees, and the flat-topped umbellifers like dill, angelica, fennel and wild carrot attract much smaller bees, beetles, and hoverflies. Honeysuckle and buddleia are favourites with moths and butterflies, and marjoram and oregano appear to appeal to everyone!
These insects will also need shelter and places to nest, and many may already be hiding in your garden. Bumblebees often nest underground in old rodent holes, or may build nests in parts of buildings such as attics, eaves, and decks. To help solitary bees, we can create places that they may find accommodating; bee hotels, holes drilled into dead tree trunks or fence posts, and bunches of bamboo tied together will all provide the protection that they need to lay eggs. These are best placed in full sun and between 1-3 metres off the ground. This is also a wonderful way to observe the life cycle of these valuable insects.
Once the buzz of summer is over, there are still plenty of nectar sources that you can introduce into your garden. In the College we have sedums, salvias, perovskia, rudbeckia, and asters continuing the flowering through till early winter. The late flowers provided by ivy make it essential to many insects and bees, as well as providing shelter to all sorts of other animals.
Our gardens are often the only area of land we have real control over. So these small positive steps can be our way of making the changes needed to encourage wildlife on our doorstep.
Alastair Mallick, Head Gardener