Did you know this week is National Pollinator Week?  Now is a great time to see several species of flowers blooming in our gardens, all of which are native to our area and were hand-picked with pollinators in mind.

Pollinators include species such as hummingbirds, butterflies, moths, flies, beetles, wasps, bats, and bees.  Pollinators are important because they help plants to reproduce. 

According to the Pollinator Partnership, 75 to 95% of flowering plants on our planet require pollination; without the assistance of pollinators, we would not have food to eat.

Here in The Parklands we are supporting pollinators by creating habitat for them.  Have you visited the pollinator garden outside of the PNC Achievement Center for Education and Interpretation?  In our garden we have a variety of colorful flowers which attract pollinators with specific adaptations for gathering nectar from flowers and transporting pollen from one flower to another.

Butterflies tend to be attracted to red, orange and purple flowers.   Butterfly milkweed, with its beautiful orange blossoms, can be found blooming in the gardens and also in the meadows throughout the park.

Moths, which are most active at night, are attracted to white flowers that emit a strong sweet odor in the evening. Bees are drawn to yellow, white or blue flowers, while hummingbirds prefer scarlet, orange, red or white-tubular-shaped flowers.  

If you want to attract pollinators to your home garden, choose native species in a variety of colors and shapes. Having flowers near your vegetable garden will help to increase productivity.  

If you love butterflies, here is a do-it-yourself method of attracting butterflies to your garden at home: 

What you need:  1 paper plate, string, over-ripe fruit

What to do:   

• Make four holes around the rim of your plate (equally spaced)
• Tie a string through each hole, then tie the ends of the string together.
• Place the mushy fruit on the plate.
• Hang the feeder near some flowers and watch!

Sources: 

http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/Gardening/Archives/2010/Gold-Medal-Favorite-Plants.aspx

http://pollinator.org/pollinators.htm

http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode=j880

http://www.fws.gov/pollinators/pdfs/PollinatorBookletFinalrevWeb.pdf

• (function(d, s, id) {
  var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
  if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
  js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
  js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1&appId=289268557818459”;
  fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
  }(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));
• Tweet
  !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);

• (function() {
  var po = document.createElement(‘script’); po.type = ‘text/javascript’; po.async = true;
  po.src = ‘https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js’;
  var s = document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s);
  })();