‘Small acts of conservation’ help pollinators

As people and municipalities in the Maritimes embrace the concept of ‘No Mow May,’ in which they don’t mow lawns or clean up yard debris to protect and provide for bees in the early spring, the Nature Conservancy of Canada suggests taking another step.

The organization said people should also look at growing native plants as a way to help urban wildlife and biodiversity.

“Instead of just not mowing, let’s make sure the plants that are there are native species,” said Jaimee Morozoff, the organzation’s program director for Nova Scotia, adding that doing so will benefit native plants, pollinators, birds, and wildlife.

She said No Mow May is a great starting point “but it makes people think about your impact on the natural world. Once you’ve dipped your toes in the water, we want to say ‘here’s what you can do.’ We’ve been calling them small acts of conservation.”

She said dandelions, which are the primary focus of No Mow May, can be a good early food source “but some other species that are native, like some of the native shrubs, willows and things like that are also superimportant nectar sources for pollinators. That’s where you can take it a step further and where we’re really nudging people towards. Instead of just no mow, let’s enhance the area that you’re allowing to be natural and bring in some of those native species.”

GO NATIVE WITH PLANTS

As the first food of spring, many trees and flowers bloom before dandelions, and are more nutritious. People who have to or still want to mow before the end of May are

portion urged to convert a small of the property, whether it is their lawn, flower or garden beds to native plants to have an impact.

Besides bees, pollinators include hummingbirds, butterflies, moths, beetles and ants.

The NCC says people who live in apartments or condominium buildings may not have lawns, but they can put a native plant on their deck or balcony to help pollinators. Native plants evolved alongside native pollinators, and as a result, provide better habitat than ornamental varieties. Ornamental plants are often bred to enhance their aesthetic traits rather than their nutritional value.

Melanie Priesnitz, conservation horticulturist at the Harriet Irving Botanical Gardens at Acadia University, said there is a lot of native groundcover available that could replace lawns and never needs mowing.

“The key to that is biodiversity,” she said. “It’s helping improve biodiversity and not planting a monoculture, and grass is a monoculture, with the odd dandelion or nonnative plant in there. You can introduce some of our native violets or early spring blooming violets to lawns because the native pollinators really love those native species. It’s the right plant for the right place for a native pollinator.”

LEAVE THE LEAVES

Keeping plant and garden debris in place from the previous years until it warms up at the end of the month also protects bees and other beneficial insects that may be

staying there.

“We’re very impatient as gardeners and as humans, and we should take some clues from mother nature,” Priesnitz said. “We just had a really hard frost here last night in the Valley and people have already cleaned up all of their leaves and sticks in the beds. Leaving the leaves and leaving things alone is important because a lot of pollinators are overwintering in those leaf piles and the debris in the gardens.”

She said days like Monday, May 9, with sun and temperatures in the mid-teens, have the botanical gardens buzzing.

“Things like the bloodroot, and the trilliums and the trout lily are just filled with little tiny native bees,” she said. “They are absolutely not starving in the gardens, but of course as we tend to take away more habitat from them it’s important as homeowners to give back.”