Bees do it. Butterflies do it. Moths do it.
In fact, lots of insects pollinate our flowers and edibles.
That's why National Pollinator Week – June 16-23 – is so important. The week spotlights the significant role that pollinators play in our everyday lives, and it encourages home gardeners to establish habitats that benefit pollinators.
"They are nature's hardest workers that maintain and balance the environment by keeping the bad bugs in check and pollinating flowers."
Other horticulturists readily agree.
"Seventy-five percent of all flowering plants, including one-third of the foods we eat, require animal pollination," said Helen Hamilton, a retired biology teacher and past president of the John Clayton Chapter Virginia Native Plant Society (www.claytonvnps.org).
"One in every three bites of food we consume comes from the activity of pollinators," adds Darl Fletcher, assistant horticultural curator at the Virginia Living Museum in Newport News.
The living museum has a butterfly garden with 60 species of plants native to Virginia. The museum is also a designated Monarch Waystation where monarch butterflies can get nectar during their fall migration back to Mexico. For more information, go to http://www.monarchwatch.org/waystations.
"Without pollinators the world – animals and humans — goes hungry," Fletcher said.
Hard at work
Insects are among the hardest working of Mother Nature's creatures, working largely unnoticed in gardens — pollinating flowers, recycling dead material, eating each other, continues Hamilton.
"A healthy garden has clumps and drifts of plants of all sizes and shapes, closely planted. Not much habitat is available for pollinators when a few decorative plants are surrounded by yards of mulch," she said.
Pollinators also need homes near flowering plants where they can nest, hibernate and hide from predators, Hamilton added.
A wildlife habitat can be simply constructed of hollow stems, dead logs with drilled holes, bark, stones, or wooden pallets and perforated brick. These "pollinator hotels" provide safe homes for bees, beetles, wasps, lizards and many other beneficial animals. Such a structure was recently completed in the Williamsburg Botanical Garden in Freedom Park in James City County.
In addition to nectar plants with overlapping bloom times, pollinators appreciate a water source such as a birdbath or shallow dish lined with pebbles, according to Grace Chapman, director of horticulture at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond.
"Bees especially need to collect water to cool their hives," she said.
In South Hampton Roads, the Norfolk Botanical Garden's summer exhibit, "Mission Monarch: Project Milkweed," focuses on pollinators, including the monarch butterfly which is disappearing in great numbers because of habitat destruction.
"We are trying to make our visitors aware of the dire plight of the monarch butterfly, and to encourage them to plant Asclepias species (milkweed) in their garden at home," said Les Parks, curator of herbaceous plants at Norfolk Botanical Garden and author of the gardening blog, A Tidewater Gardener (http://atidewatergardener.blogspot.com).