{"id":3290,"date":"2019-01-03T19:11:19","date_gmt":"2019-01-03T19:11:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ongardening.com\/?p=3290"},"modified":"2019-03-06T23:13:02","modified_gmt":"2019-03-06T23:13:02","slug":"plants-that-bugs-prefer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ongardening.com\/?p=3290","title":{"rendered":"Plants Preferred by Pollinators"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When\nplanning their gardens, many gardeners recognize the relationships between\ntheir plants and local wildlife. This ecological perspective has gardening\nimplications for each of several categories of wildlife: birds, mammals,\nreptiles, and various invertebrates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An\noverarching concept for this ecological perspective is the food chain. Insects\nare low on the food chain, so selecting plants according to the needs and\npreferences of insects has impacts on the higher levels of the chain. As a\nbasic example, plants that attract insects to the garden increase the food\nsource for birds and reptiles, and an increase in the numbers of birds and\nreptiles provides food for carnivores. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gardeners\noften want to grow flowering plants that attract bees, butterflies, and other\npollinators. Those gardeners might intend primarily to support plant\npollination and garden aesthetics (butterflies always delight the eye), but their\nplant selection also supports the food chain. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we\ndevelop our garden and select plants from this ecological perspective, we might\nfavor plants that are native to our local environment. The rationale for\npreferring native plants reflects an assumption that the insects and other\nwildlife in our gardens know and prefer plants that they have encountered\nthroughout their lives, and the lives of their preceding generations. Surely,\nwild creatures communicate survival knowledge to their offspring at least by\ndemonstration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For such\nreasons, I have favored native plants because of their presumed appeal to local\nwildlife, in addition to the compatibility of native plants with native soil,\nclimate, and plant communities. The logical application to this view is for the\ngardener to fill the garden with native plants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\napproach to landscaping succeeds. We are not here to negate gardening in the\nMonterey Bay area with California native plants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have\nbecome aware, however, of another layer of thought to consider. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a recent issue\nof Horticulture magazine, entomologist Eric Grissell described a wildlife\ngardening study, \u201cPlants for Bugs,\u201d conducted by England\u2019s Royal Horticultural\nSociety. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I visited the project’s website<\/a> to learn about this project. Its first bulletin for gardeners is titled \u201cGardens as Habitats for Pollinators\u201d (August 2015). This column addresses the study\u2019s methods and findings related to pollinators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Honey bee (Apis mellifera<\/em>) pollinates creeping thistle  photo by Ivan Leidus,
shared via Wikimedia Common<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The study\u2019s\napproach was to observe the numbers of times pollinating insects land on\nflowers of plants with each of three different origins: United Kingdom natives;\nother Northern hemisphere natives, i.e., plants from regions similar to the UK;\nand Southern hemisphere natives, i.e., plants from climates and habitats that\nare different from the UK. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study\u2019s\noriginal recommendations are oriented to the United Kingdom, but they could be\napplied reasonably to other gardening environs. Accordingly, I have modified\nthe wording of these statements to relate them to gardening in the Monterey Bay\narea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Gardeners\nshould plant a mix of flowering plants from different countries and regions; <\/li>
  2. Plant\nselection should emphasize plants that are native to California\u2019s central\ncoast, or to the Mediterranean climate areas;<\/li>
  3. Regardless\nof plant origins, the more flowers the garden can offer throughout the year,\nthe greater number of pollinators it will attract and support. <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Plants that\nare native to the garden area are still important, but gardens serve\npollinators best when they have large numbers of flowers and a long flowering\nseason, regardless of the origins of the plants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In a future\ncolumn, we\u2019ll review this project\u2019s second bulletin, \u201cGardens as Habitats for\nPlant-Dwelling Invertebrates\u201d (August 2017). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    When planning their gardens, many gardeners recognize the relationships between their plants and local wildlife. This ecological perspective has gardening implications for each of several categories of wildlife: birds, mammals, reptiles, and various invertebrates. An overarching concept for this ecological … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[186],"tags":[51,202,50],"class_list":["post-3290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays-2018","tag-bees","tag-insects","tag-pollinators"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2WCVL-R4","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ongardening.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ongardening.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ongardening.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ongardening.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ongardening.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3290"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/ongardening.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3393,"href":"http:\/\/ongardening.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3290\/revisions\/3393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ongardening.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ongardening.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ongardening.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}