Planting for Pollinators

All pollinators need plants to survive. You can help by planting a simple patch or pot of flowers. If you live in an apartment, you may be able to plant flowers in window boxes. Even a window box of kitchen herbs or a pot of flowers can help. Although native plants are best, you do not need to plant a wildflower garden to help pollinators. Pollinators, like all living things, need food, water, and shelter for themselves and their babies. Some plants and pollinators have developed special features and special relationships over the millenia. For example, plants with tubular flowers evolved to be pollinated by hummingbirds and other pollinators that can reach into the long tube for nectar. Milkweeds and monarch butterflies evolved together; the milkweed is a host plant for monarch caterpillars. Golden alexander (Zizzia sp.) is a host plant for black swallowtail butterflies, but sometimes the caterpillars will also eat carrots, dill, parsley, and fennel. Sometimes the caterpillars are called parsley worms! Here are some kitchen herbs that pollinators love: anise hysspop, basil, borage, calendula, chives, dill, fennel, hyssop, lemon balm, mint, oregano, parsley, rosemary, sage, savory, and thyme. Lavender also attracts pollinators. These herbs attract bumblebees, honeybees, small flies, wasps, and some butterflies. Angelica, which I grew for the first time this year, attracts hordes of pollinators. Monarda, or bee balm, attracts bees and hummingbirds. Common flowers attract pollinators, including sunflowers and zinnias. Bumble bees are even known to sleep in sunflowers. Hummingbirds love cana lillies. If you are interested in growing native host plants to help pollinators, here are a few resources to guide you. The North American Pollinator Protection Campaign has developed ecoregional guides for different areas of the United States. Each guide lists pollinator host plants, including trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants. Here is a link to the ecoregional guide for Washington, DC and surrounding area. If you live in another part of the country, fear not! Follw this link and type in your zip code to find your ecoregional guide. If you like native plants, but want to make sure that you are growing a plant that fits in your garden and is relatively free from diseases, Mt. Cuba Center in Delaware conducts plant trials for various cultivated varieties (cultivars) of native plants. In each plant trial, Mt. Cuba researchers tested different cultivars for years to see how well each grew. You can check the Mt. Cuba trial results to help select native plants for your garden when you go to the garden center. #Pollinators #pollinatorgardens #Mt.Cuba #NorthAmericanPollinatorProtectionCampaign

Citizen Science Projects to Help Pollinators

Skipper on Zinnia, Courtesy of Bernice Williams

If you are curious about pollinators and like taking pictures of them and learning more about them, you may be interested in a citizen science project. Scientists are asking ordinary people to collect data on the distribution of pollinators across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. All you need to do is take pictures, load them into iNaturalist.org, and add data such as where you took the picture, the date, and an identification of the pollinator. For example, the photo above is a skipper, a type of butterfly, taken by Bernice in the Mamie D. Lee Community Garden, near 100 Gallatin St. NE, Washington, DC. This project is a pollinator BioBlitz sponsored by the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign. It runs until July 31, 2026. Best of all, it has prizes for the person with the most observations in their region and for the person with the most species diversity.

If you like watching and listening to birds in your garden, there is another citizen science project sponsored by Colorado State University. This one is on songbirds as pollinators. Like the 2026 pollinator BioBlitz, you upload photos of songbirds on blooming flowers to iNaturalist, with data on location, date, and the songbird's identification. This project started in 2023 but continues today. 

If you are new to iNaturalist, check out this information on getting started and these video tutorials on taking and uploading photos. The help section of iNaturalist is available in numerous languages, including English, French, and Spanish. Look for the tab in the upper-right corner, and click on your language. 

Who are the pollinators?

Many people think of honeybees and butterflies as pollinators, but many other insects are pollinators as well. Bumblebees, like the one pictured above, are pollinators. Moths are also pollinators. Wasps are pollinators. Beetles, including fireflies, are pollinators. In fact, beetles pollinate magnolias and water lilies. Some flies are even pollinators! The Xerces Society has an excellent web page on invertebrate pollinators. 

If you want to learn more about insect pollinators, our friends at the Pollinator Partnership have some lovely full-color printable guides to help you with identification. Here is a bee identification guide and another, similar, guide for swallowtail butterflies. Please be careful when you are looking at bees and wasps to avoid getting stung.  

Mammals and birds are also pollinators. For example, bats pollinate night-blooming plants. The long-nosed bat of the American Southwest pollinates agave plants, making tequila possible.  

Let's Have a Pollinator Party!!!

 

It's Pollinator Week, and our friends at Pollinator.org are having a week-long pollinator party. Because you can't have a party without music, one of our gardeners has developed a playlist, Roots, Rhythms, & Blooms. The playlist features a joyful mix of R&B, Soul, Pop, Afrobeat, African, Latino, Reggae, and feel-good classics inspired by pollinators, plants, community, and the many cultures that make our garden special. This is great music to play while gardening.

You can listen to the playlist on Spotify using this link:

Mamie D. Lee Community Garden Presents: Roots, Rhythms & Blooms - playlist by Roots & Rhythms | Spotify.

Alternatively, you can scan this QR Code to listen.

If you aren't familiar with Spotify, listening is easy and free. Here's how to listen:

1. Download the free Spotify app from your phone's app store or from Spotify.com

2. Create a free account or sign into your account

3. Click on the playlist link or scan the QR code

4. Press Play and enjoy! 

It's Pollinator Week!

Our community garden is celebrating Pollinator Week! 

We love pollinators at the Mamie D. Lee Community Garden. Why? Pollinators are responsible for the great garden hauls of cucumbers, tomatoes, squash, peppers, and eggplant. In fact, one of every three bites of food is from the work of pollinators. 

To encourage pollinators, we've dedicated a few garden plots to pollinator gardens. We've installed plants that pollinators love. We've ensured that flowers are blooming from early spring to late fall. You can see two of our pollinator gardens through the fence: a pocket herb garden in the Southeast corner and a pocket flower garden in the Southwest Corner, close to the main gate. There are other pollinator gardens on the North side of the garden. 

Pollinator Week was established in 2006 by the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC) to celebrate pollinators and raise awareness of their importance to farmers, gardeners, and the food we eat. It received an official Congressional designation in 2007 through the work of a bipartisan Congressional Pollinator Caucus. You can find more information on the National 2026 Pollinator Week celebration at Pollinator.org and Xerces.org.  

Follow this blog for fun pollinator week activities. To learn more about our pollinator gardens, please email pollinatorgarden@mdlga.org. To learn more about our community garden, please email info@mdlga.org.