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Sundays with Sue

By SCMG Sue Lovelace
February 28, 2021

There’s so much to write about at this time in the garden, but today will be all about flowers! Flowers in February, you may say? Yes, very much so! Not only are the fabulous blossoms on early flowering perennials, annuals, vegetables and fruits delighting me, I’ve also been utterly consumed with making sure our front yard pollinator garden is full of flowering plants to greet pollinators as they arrive. As you might imagine, this has involved research, nursery hopping, planting, repositioning plants, reconstructing irrigation (ugh!), gopher control (caging any new plants) (double ugh!) and those ever present and persistent, weeds.

After taking out two overly huge and really not very pollinator-efficient shrub roses, and then adding a dry creek bed for our back yard rain barrels to flow into, I started research and information gathering to replace roses and also fill in spaces created by the new configuration of the yard created by the new dry creek bed. The purpose of my research was to gather as much information as possible to populate my pollinator space with plants that will attract a broad range of pollinators and also meet my criteria of incorporating more natives and drought tolerant plants. This research took me, again, to Pollinator Syndromes.

Pollinator Syndromes are characteristics (color, shape, odor, nectar, and structure) in plants that certain pollinators look for. The amazing thing about this is that plants compete with other plants to attract said pollinators. If you’ve ever admired a plant’s unique colors and markings and thought it was meant to attract humans, it’s not. It’s the plant’s efforts, after evolving for many years, to attract pollinators away from other plants!!

Color is an important characteristic to consider when trying to attract pollinators to your garden. For example, bees are attracted to blue, bright white, yellow and UV (ultra violet), butterflies are attracted to bright colors like red, purple, orange and also UV, and hummingbirds are attracted to scarlet, white, red, and orange, really, all sorts of colors. The tricky thing is that bees and butterflies see ultra violet colors that we can not see. UV colors usually are presented as nectar guides.

Nectar guides are lines or designs in the flowers that direct pollinators to where the nectar is. Some nectar guides are easy for us to see, others appear differently in the ultra violet that only bees and butterflies see. I was so fascinated to learn that the iridescent black marks on our red poppies were actually nectar guides showing bees that nectar is present and where it is! That explains why bees forage all over the poppies when they are purported to not be attracted to red. My newest endeavor is looking closely at flowers to find the visible nectar guides, which can be seen in all sorts of colors and designs—so cool!!

The shapes and the structures of flowers play a big part as to which pollinator visits them to gather nectar. Bees like a variety of shapes such as flat or bowled where nectar is close to the surface. Bumblebees with their “buzz” pollination (pollen is vibrated loose from the flower) are more effective with many flowers than honey bees. Interestingly, manzanitas which are early bloomers, conserve their nectar with upside down blooms until the bumblebees come along and buzz it loose. Butterflies require a landing pad to sit on to sip nectar sitting a bit deeper in the flower. Hummingbirds with their long beaks and tongues will efficiently draw nectar from pendulous blooms like runner beans, succulent flowers and salvias.

Sweet fresh odors can play a part with many pollinators like bees, butterflies, moths, and sometimes beetles. Fruit and vegetable blossoms are especially enticing and visible evidence to the motives of plants to be so attractive to these pollinators. Fruits and seeds are valuable outcomes. Flies are attracted to strong, often putrid, odors where bats prefer a musty odor.

If trying to accommodate all these Pollinator Syndromes sounds complicated, know that diversity saves the day. The family Lamiaceae has its own built in diversity. In this family are species like lavender, salvia, rosemary, catmint (Nepeta), calamintha, oregano and thyme. The family, Asteraceae, is also so diverse. Equally, consider sunflowers, artichokes, yarrows, gaillardias, asters, and daisies. While considering species in these families and others, incorporate different heights and sizes. Also, important for pollinating gardens is to plant large strands of the same species. Planting three species (they can be different varieties) close together keeps pollinators, especially bees, in your garden longer and also keeps them coming back. It’s also good to incorporate succulents in dry areas for their nectar flowers and grasses for potential nesting sites.

Currently in my front yard pollinator garden, I have multiple species and varieties of salvia, lavender, Nepeta, verbena, gaillardia, mallow, aster, as well as herbs like oregano and thyme. I also have fruit trees, (too many), blueberries, artichokes, grasses, succulents, and many shrubs, native and non-native. I look forward to the flowers and the pollinators that will be attracted to them! First, irrigation, gopher cages, and mulching. Oh yes, and weeding!

Enjoy your week and take care.

“Don’t wait for someone to bring you flowers. Plant your own garden and decorate your own soul.” Luther Burbank