National Pollinator Week

According to an email from the Plantsmen, a wonderful native plants nursery around the corner from us, it's National Pollinator Week. I celebrate pollinators every day (including in my May 10 and June 3 posts), but it seemed appropriate to do so again, even briefly.

One of the seemingly indefatigable bumblebees on a columbine flower.

Butterflies are the "preferred" pollinators that so many homeowners seek, and nurseries cater to this bias by labeling plants as "butterfly attractors."  More accurately however, those nectar-filled flowers are "pollinator attractors," and it is the huge diversity of native bees, small predatory wasps, innumerable beetles and other insects that do the bulk of the work.

That said, I too enjoy watching the large, graceful swallowtails flutter-by, while summoning the patience to wait for them to alight long enough to snap a decent photo. And I realize that it will be easier to engage people in creating habitat for butterflies than for bees.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on Dame's Rocket

We'll continue to do our part in supporting the pollinators who support us. The more our yard resembles a meadow with a great diversity of native flowering plants throughout the spring, summer and fall, the more pollinators we see. After all, they (and we) can't eat grass!