How native flowers help your veggie garden

Gardening is a wonderful way to make the most of spring and summer’s warm and sunny months, with more than 60 per cent of Canadian households growing some kind of herbs, vegetables, fruit or flowers for personal use.

If fruit and veggies are your thing, you may see wildlife as a hindrance rather than a help — after all, no one likes it when raccoons make off with their raspberries or a squirrel takes one bite out of every single pepper — but, there’s one category of wildlife that you need for a good harvest: pollinators.

Over 75 per cent of the world’s flowering plants need pollinators to reproduce, including  garden mainstays like cucumbers, squash, melons, tomatoes, peppers and eggplants.

So while putting up defenses may help you with rabbits, when it comes to pollinators, the best way to help your garden is by laying down the welcome mat.

Why are pollinators important for a good harvest? Without pollinators, and native bees in particular, some of your plants (namely melons, cucumbers and squash) won’t produce fruit or vegetables at all, and others (like eggplants, peppers and tomatoes) will produce fewer or smaller ones than they would if pollinated by bees.

For maximum production, bees must move pollen, either from one flower to another flower or from one structure to another within the same flower, depending on the type of plant.

The first bee that crosses your mind might be the honeybee, but did you know that this species is not native to Canada? Honeybees may be proficient pollinators, but there are also about 800 species of native bees in Canada, some of which can transfer pollen even more effectively than their introduced counterparts. Native bumble bees, but not honeybees, perform a particular style of pollination called “buzz pollination” — vibrating to dislodge pollen from a flower — which gives bumble bees an edge when it comes to pollinating plants like tomatoes.

Having a variety of native pollinator species around helps your garden produce food consistently, since different pollinator species shine at different times and under different conditions and vary in terms of the flower shapes and sizes they pollinate best.

You can help your fruit and veggie plants, native bees and your local ecosystem all at once by taking these steps to welcome pollinators:

• Grow native flowers near your vegetable garden. If you’re not sure how to get started, you can find free guidance from WWF-Canada experts at wwfcastg.wwf.ca/regrow.
• Include plants that flower at different times throughout the growing season. It’s ideal to offer “continuous blooming,” with something blooming each week from spring to fall, to help attract the largest number and greatest variety of pollinators.
• Provide a water source such as a mud puddle or bowl that collects rainwater. Let the water sit — it might not look appealing to us, but pollinators take in needed nutrients by drinking “dirty” water full of algae and mud. Include some stones, sticks or corks that pollinators can use as landing pads.
• Leave some patches of bare soil and don’t clean up all the fallen leaves and dead plant stems in the fall. Many native bees need safe places to spend the winter, which may be among the leaves, inside stems or underground.
• Avoid using insecticides.

To learn more about growing native plants, trees and shrubs to help pollinators and other wildlife, visit wwfcastg.wwf.ca/regrow.