Nurture Your Pollinator Garden Year Round With These Fall and Winter Maintenance Tips
If you have a pollinator garden, you no doubt delight in counting those buzzing bumblebees, heroic hummingbirds and beautiful butterflies that visit your yard during the summer. However, it’s important to continue to support these hard little workers during the colder months by providing continuous food during the fall along with shelter and nesting opportunities throughout the winter. Read on to get the buzz on pollinator garden maintenance, including how to transition to a winter pollinator garden.
Why Are Pollinators Important?
Pollinators are some of the world’s hardest working animals, helping to spread pollen from plant to plant — thus, enabling them to reproduce — as they feed on their nectar. In fact, pollinators are responsible for about one out of every three bites of food you eat, as they support many crops like potatoes, peaches and bananas.
Unfortunately, many pollinator populations are threatened by habitat degradation and fragmentation, imported species and diseases, pesticides, and a changing climate. In the U.S. alone, there are 70 endangered or threatened pollinator species. Pollinator gardens are an easy and effective way to support these critters by providing habitat and food.
See more: 7 Ways to Attract Pollinators to Your Garden
Pollinator Garden Basics
When selecting candidates for your pollinator garden, focus on native plants, which offer an abundant supply of nectar and pollen. Natives also are generally low-maintenance, pest-free and drought-tolerant.
Opt for a variety of plants with different blooming times throughout the spring, summer and fall to provide a continuous smorgasbord of food.
Planting in groupings makes the biggest impact, helping pollinators to easily spot plants. Meanwhile, selecting a diversity of plants with different heights, sizes, shapes and colors will support a greater variety of pollinators.
It’s also important to limit or eliminate pesticide usage, as the chemicals can be harmful to pollinators.
Clean water is also a must. You can dig holes throughout your garden to create small pools or fill shallow containers with fresh water.
Tips for Transitioning to a Winter Pollinator Garden
Pollinator garden maintenance doesn’t stop when summer comes to an end. Here are some tips to support pollinators as the mercury drops.
Leave the Leaves to Provide Shelter for Overwintering Pollinators
Many moth and butterfly caterpillars overwinter in fallen leaves before emerging in the spring. That’s why it’s a good idea to fight the instinct to rake up those leaves that blanket your yard in the fall. Leaving this organic matter also has a side benefit: it acts as a natural mulch, helping to suppress weeds and fertilizing the soil as it decomposes.
Bumblebees also will appreciate this layer of leaves — mated female bumblers burrow about an inch or two underground to hibernate during the winter, and the extra layer of insulation can help protect them from the elements.
The idea is to leave these leaves permanently, but if you do need to remove them in the spring, make sure to do it late in the season to avoid harming the insects that you’ve worked so hard to protect over the winter.
Leave Some Bare Areas for Bees
Around 70% of native bees, including mason bees and mining bees, nest in the ground over the winter. You can help them access this essential underground real estate by leaving some areas of bare ground along the edges of your garden in the fall.
Dead Stems Are Our Friends
Likewise, bees sometimes like to nest in plant stems, so you can create a winter home for these pollinators by leaving dead stems standing at least 12 inches instead of cutting them all the way to the ground. You can also purchase or make your own “bee hotel.”
Offer Sustenance
Provide pollinators with the energy they need to get them through the cooler months by planting late-season bloomers that will provide them with nectar when resources are otherwise scarce.
Some popular fall and winter blooming choices for pollinators include asters, coreopsis, sunflowers, dahlias, goldenrod, hazelnut, heath, heather, winter jasmine, witch hazel, rosemary, manzanita and chaparral currant. You can also leave mustard, cabbage and other brassicas in the vegetable garden so they can bloom into the winter. Remember to always choose native plants when possible.
Consider a Cover Crop in Your Veggie Garden
Crops like fava beans, crimson and white clover, and hairy vetch bloom late into the season, maintaining your pollinator garden by providing nectar for bees and other pollinators. These plants will also improve your garden soil by supplying nutrients and breaking it up as well as suppressing weeds.
See more: How to Start a Pollinator Garden
Clean Up Debris That May Harbor Disease
While it’s a good idea to leave some stems and leaves in your garden to support pollinators, there are some things that can lead to disease and pests if left over the winter. Come spring, this could spell disaster, as you may be tempted to use pesticides that are harmful to pollinators and other beneficial insects. Some plant debris to remove include tomato, pepper, squash and cucumber plants, along with any fallen fruit.
Plant Pollinator-Friendly Plants Now
Fall is the time to get those perennial plants in the ground so that they have sufficient time to develop the robust root systems they’ll need to make it through the summer. If you’re growing from seed, aim to do this during October or November. Some of the top late-spring/early-summer blooming perennials for bees include lavender, purple coneflower, bee balm and salvia. Meanwhile, don’t forget to provide a plant selection for other pollinators like butterflies, moths, bats and hummingbirds.
Fall is also the best time to plant spring bulbs. Just make sure to stay away from highly hybridized varieties, as they do not benefit pollinators. Some of the best pollinator-friendly bulb flowers include snowdrops, winter aconite, crocus, Siberian squill, glory-of-the-snow, wood anemone, reticulated iris, hyacinth, crown imperial, Spanish bluebells, ornamental onions and quamash.