World Honey Bee Day, celebrated the third Saturday in August, is a chance to celebrate honey bees and highlight the crucial role they play in our ecosystem. These tiny pollinators are essential for the growth of crops, landscapes and home gardens and contribute to biodiversity and food security.
To celebrate the day, University of Florida expert Tom Wichman, assistant director of the UF/IFAS Florida-Friendly LandscapingTM (FFL) Program, shares his best practices for how to design your home landscaping or garden to make a cozy home for honey bees and other pollinators.
Q: Why are pollinators like honey bees important for landscapes in Florida?
A: Bees and other pollinators are essential to our food web, and many plants need them for reproduction. Florida is home to more than 300 species of native wild bees which are helping the honey bees and other pollinators move nectar from plant to plant and flower to flower.
Q: What big-picture best practices do you recommend for landscapes and gardens to create a pollinator-friendly environment?
A: You can get started by planting a wide variety of flowering plants. In making your selections, try to make sure that you have at least something blooming at all times of the year. Make sure that there are sources of water and use as few pesticides as possible. If you must spray, only spray in the evening when bees will be less active, and be sure to follow all label instructions.
Q: What plants do you recommend to attract and sustain pollinators like honey bees?
A: To get started, do some research and make sure you are selecting the right plants for the right places. This will give the plants the best chance for success. For bees, choose plants that have yellow, white, blue and purple flowers. Provide a mix of plants with composite and clustered flowers, and don’t forget about woody shrubs and trees. Even if you don’t have much space to plant, many flowering plants are well-suited to growing in containers and can be a resource to our pollinators. A few annuals and perennials to consider are blanket flower, coreopsis, Stokes’ aster, salvia, black-eyed Susan and beautyberry.
Q: What watering and fertilizing strategies do you recommend to create a pollinator-friendly landscape or garden?
A: The key to being successful with your pollinator garden is getting plants that are suited to the location. The Florida-Friendly LandscapingTM Program has resources to help you choose native and non-native plants that will survive mostly on rainfall once established. They will need regular watering while getting started but should do well while only requiring supplemental watering when we are experiencing drought.
Q: What are the long-term benefits of making a pollinator-friendly environment outside your home?
A: The long-term benefits of creating your pollinator garden are increased biodiversity and a healthier environment. If we all do a little, it can really amount to making a huge difference and help to ensure that our honey bees, native bees and other pollinators have plenty of plants to visit and remain part of our everyday lives.
Q: What are some tips to make a pollinator-friendly environment on a budget?
A: Start with small spaces and build upon your successes. If you try to do too much all at once, you may get frustrated and give up. Starting small will also allow you to spread out the money you spend to make it more affordable.
The Florida-Friendly LandscapingTM Program has apps that may help you in your efforts to garden for your pollinators. There is a plant guide, a bee app and a butterfly app that will help you to choose plants and identify what you have and let you know what might be possible. These apps are available on the FFL website at FloridaFriendlyLandscaping.com.
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ABOUT UF/IFAS
The mission of the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) is to develop knowledge relevant to agricultural, human and natural resources and to make that knowledge available to sustain and enhance the quality of human life. With more than a dozen research facilities, 67 county Extension offices, and award-winning students and faculty in the UF College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, UF/IFAS brings science-based solutions to the state’s agricultural and natural resources industries, and all Florida residents.
ABOUT THE FLORIDA-FRIENDLY LANDSCAPING PROGRAM
Florida-Friendly Landscaping™ (FFL) program promotes sustainable alternatives to “conventional” landscaping by providing guidance to homeowners and industry professionals on low-impact, environmentally friendly and science-based landscape practices that use less water and reduce pollutant loading to Florida waters. Sponsored in part by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the overall goal of the FFL program is to reduce nonpoint source pollution through proper fertilization, irrigation, and pesticide use on residential and commercial landscapes.
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