Windows on Wildlife: Attracting Pollinators

Welcome to the third edition of Windows on Wildlife!  If you have a recent post about wildlife you’d like to share – it can be anything: birds, insects, mammals – scroll down to the end of the post and add your site; a compilation of all additions will be posted the following week.  Please don’t forget to link back here (I’d love it if you’d add the Windows on Wildlife button on the sidebar to your post) and visit other blogs that have articles to share.  Thanks for stopping by!

Thanks to Michelle over at Rambling Woods for reminding me that this week is Pollinator Week! As the Pollinator Partnership says on their website:

“Pollinating animals, including bees, birds, butterflies, bats, beetles and others, are vital to our delicate ecosystem, supporting terrestrial wildlife, providing healthy watershed, and more. Therefore, Pollinator Week is a week to get the importance of pollinators’ message out to as many people as possible… Pollinators positively effect all our lives- let’s SAVE them and CELEBRATE them! “

I love teaching by example, and find that it’s one of the best ways I learn as well. Which isn’t the only thing, but is one of the very many things I love about Michelle and her blog. So here goes:

A few years ago my husband and I took a small square of our property and converted it into garden space. I dedicated it to herbs and native wildflowers – and it’s turned out to be a terrific pollinator garden! Some of my plantings and native growth include:

• Milkweed (the host plant for Monarch Butterflies)
• Yarrow – the native variety, not the cultivated ones
• Black-eyed Susan (ditto to above)
• Echinacea
• Bee Balm
• Red Clover
• Daisy (also native variety not cultivated, although I transplanted it from the Catskills)
• Sensitive fern (I love ferns, and these just grow all on their own, along with another species I haven’t yet ID’d and I’m thrilled to have them in my garden!)
• Coreopsis (don’t know which species I have – my step-mom gave me some to plant and it’s beautiful but definitely cultivated!)
• Sage (culinary variety)
• Thyme (also culinary)
• Basil (culinary)
• Peppermint (cultivated)
• …and a few other species that I haven’t taken the time to identify, but are happy living in my garden.

We definitely have our share of bees, butterflies hummingbirds and other pollinators that take advantage of not only my garden, but all the native herbs and wildflowers that live in our “lawn” as well.

Interested in growing a pollinator garden?  One of the easiest things you can do is take a section of your property, no matter how large or small, and just let it grow on its own and see what’s there!  You’d be surprised over a few seasons how adding a few transplants here and there and encouraging the native plants will produce a lovely space that’s beneficial for all kinds of wildlife!

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Last week’s Windows on Wildlife included a fascinating encounter between an Oriole and a Blue Jay as observed by Michelle at Rambling woods. And we were joined by Jenny at Cheetahs in My Shoes who shared photos and a story of some entertaining and entrepreneurial gulls. Share your wildlife encounters and observations with us through the link-in system below!