How to Bring Pollinators Back Into a Small Yard
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If you have got plants that flower well and then set almost no fruit, the missing piece is often not in the soil at all. Nothing is coming to the flowers.
Most yards are a long way apart
A lawn with a fence around it has nothing in it for a bee, so what you end up with is little pockets of good habitat separated by a lot of nothing. The fix is not a bigger garden, it is more stepping stones, and a strip along the driveway or a row of pots is genuinely enough to be one.
What to plant
You do not need anything exotic. Grevilleas carry a lot of nectar and the native bees find them fast. Kangaroo paw brings in native bees and small birds. Westringia, the one people call native rosemary, is close to bulletproof and hoverflies love it. Lavender is not native and the bees do not care, they are all over it. And coriander that has gone to seed on you is not a failure, it is one of the best pollinator plants you can have, so let it run.
Herbs count generally. Basil, thyme and mint all pull insects in if you let some of them flower instead of picking every tip.
If you rent, use pots
Pots at different heights work better than one flat row, because it gives the insects something to move between. Grow bags are cheap and do the job on a balcony or a bit of paving. Even a window box adds something, particularly at dawn and dusk when the moths are about.
Leave a corner untidy
A bit of bare ground, some hollow stems, a small log. Most native bees are solitary and nest in exactly the sort of neglected corner you would otherwise clean up, so the laziest part of the yard is doing work.
Go easy on the spray
A broad spray takes the pollinators out along with the pests, and the pests recover faster, so you end up with less fruit and the same problem.
Come and have a yak with us about what suits your spot, because a plant that will not handle the sun or the soil you have got is not going to feed anything.
Shop related products
- Potting Mix 70L Brunnings. For a pot or a grow bag setup.
- Brunnings Garden Compost with Seaweed 25L. For getting natives established in the ground.
- Seasol Seaweed Concentrate 1L. A tonic while new plantings settle in.
- Martins Organic Sugar Cane Bale 11kg. Mulch the beds and leave one patch bare for the ground-nesting bees.
Natives, herbs and pots come and go with the season, so ask us what is on the benches in the garden centre.
Keep reading
Candeece. The messy corner is doing more work than the tidy one.
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