Facts of Life as Told by Pollinators

Back in the day we parents squirmed over the inevitable “facts of life” talk with our kids. You know, that talk about “The Birds and the Bees.” And today’s parents are faced with the imperative to add a second “Birds and Bees” talk to their already-overburdened parenting skills repertoire.

This one’s the literal talk about birds and bees—and butterflies, bats, moths, other beneficial insects, and indeed all pollinators—and facts of life about human dependence on pollinators for our survival here on earth.

Plight of the Pollinators
We’re all aware by now of a significant reduction in pollinator populations and the grim predictions of their impending demise since reports in 2006 of one-quarter of U.S. bee colonies suffering a mysterious and lethal disease called Colony Collapse Disorder made big news.

Pollinators are struggling for their very existence; their extinction would diminish the variety of life on this earth, and there’s considerable buzz circling them these days. Currently, our honeybee population is continuing to decline drastically from a variety of causes—primarily parasites, exposure to toxic chemicals such as Bayer’s neonicotinoid pesticides and habitat loss.

Monarch butterflies have joined honeybees as the current headline-grabbing poster children of the dwindling pollinator world. Some butterfly species are already extinct, and it’s been reported that the monarch population has suffered more than an 80% decline in the past two decades—from more than one billion in the mid-1990s to 56.5 million last year—primarily due to pesticides and habitat loss, along with vagaries of weather.

Every time homeowners, farmers, or highway departments mow or spray pesticides on milkweed, they destroy the only habitat and food source nature has provided for caterpillar-stage monarchs and cut the monarch’s life cycle short.

And illegal logging is doing the same to the monarchs in Mexico.

Even designating monarch-protected reserves for overwintering grounds in Mexico hasn’t stopped loggers from illegally clear-cutting reserve acreage and wiping them out.

Why We Care
When birds flutter and dive through flowering trees and shrubs, they distribute pollen, while most other pollinators spread pollen as they flit from flower to flower for a meal of nectar. On the most fundamental level, we humans need these birds, bees, butterflies and a great variety of other pollinators because our food source is reliant on them. A recent report notes that nearly 100 varieties of nuts, fruits and vegetables such as almonds, apples, pumpkins and cranberries require honeybees for pollination, and the production of other types of crops is dependent on different pollinators.

The bottom line is that pollinators are responsible for one out of three bites of food we eat each day.

As for monarchs, they intrigue us. They’re The Beauty Queen of butterflies and engage our attention with fascinating migration patterns. But cosmetic, feel-good sensory pleasures aren’t the only reasons for us to care about them. They are also powerful pollinators, and their steady decline alerts us to the imminence of their extinction.

Pollinator alarm bells sound for even the most ardent optimist, and a simple Google search will inundate you with more depressing facts than you’ll want to know. Consider a recent United Nations report warning that:
• 40% of pollinators face extinction.
• Nearly 90% of all wild flowering plants depend at least to some extent on animal pollinators.
• Pollinators are important to many of the foods that are key sources of the vitamins and minerals in our diet. Nutritionally, the pollinator decline will likely have the biggest impact on the poorest people of the world.

Efforts to Stem the Tide of Extinction
Now for the silver lining: Government, politicians, lawyers, scientists, educators, writers, publishers, conservationists, gardeners, and schoolchildren (and the list goes on) are joining forces to save our pollinators. The White House has released a National Strategy to Protect Pollinators and Their Habitat, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is engaging states to develop a state managed Pollinator Protection Plan and Virginia’s planning process is underway. The EPA is also expediting reassessment of systemic insecticides like neonicotinoids.

On all fronts, efforts are underway to save the pollinators. American novelist Barbara Kingsolver captured our imagination and touched our monarch-loving hearts in Flight Behavior and National Geographic just announced a new book to transform home gardens into havens for Birds, Bees & Butterflies including tips on the art of beekeeping.

Here at home in Central Virginia, we proudly claim the world’s foremost expert in monarch research, Dr. Lincoln Brower, Biology professor at Sweet Briar College and nominee for the prestigious 2016 Indianapolis Prize, the world’s leading award for animal conservation. Dr. Brewer has been studying monarchs for more than 50 years, and for 30 of those years his personal mission has been preservation of this butterfly.

Education Is Power
The international Xerces Society and other nonprofits, colleges and universities, Master Gardener associations and garden clubs are all working diligently to educate citizens on how to protect bees and other pollinators and encourage planting flower gardens to attract and nourish pollinators. In April, a lecture on beekeeping was featured during Garden Day in Lynchburg, hosted by the Lynchburg Garden Club and Hillside Garden Club as part of The Garden Club of Virginia’s Historic Garden Week in Virginia.

Also in April, Dr. Brower spoke on “Monarch butterflies and the North American Flora” at the Virginia Federation of Garden Clubs’ annual convention here in Lynchburg. Other international collaborative efforts include the work of Dr. Dave Goulson, University of Sussex, UK and author of the Sciencexpress review: “Bee Declines Driven by Combined Stress from Parasites, Pesticides, and Lack of Flowers.”

As a Master Gardener, I regularly receive notice of webinars and conferences such as North Carolina State University’s recent conference on “Protecting Pollinators in Ornamental Landscapes.” And I was delighted to see a genuine passion for pollinator protection and conservation by garden club members here in Lynchburg and in Danville recently when I presented Master Gardener programs on “Native Plants for Sustainable Landscapes.”

We as Central Virginia home gardeners and landscapers can flex our leadership muscle by joining the ever-growing swarm of pollinator-rescue “worker-bees.” We can spread the word, join an activist group, become beekeepers and/or plant gardens to attract and sustain pollinators.

Become a Beekeeper
Since bees are the major source of pollination (in addition to producing products such as honey and beeswax), interest in beekeeping is on a steady uptick—even in cities (including Lynchburg)—by those who are passionate about increasing our dwindling bee population. My own sisters, Betsy and Jan, completed a beekeeping course at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden and have established honeybee hives in their backyards in Richmond.

Because of the critical nature of protecting and preserving our bee population, beekeeping is now supported by government subsidies in the United States. The U.S. Department of Agriculture provides grants for beekeeping education, start up supplies and colony stipends for raising bees.

Plant a Pollinator Garden
We gardeners can help fix the “lack of flowers” problem by planting milkweed and a diversity of other flowering plants that provide nectar to support pollinators in our own home and community gardens. These can be flowering annuals, perennials, groundcovers, shrubs and trees. Native plants are at the top of this planting list, since they co-evolved with our native (and most efficient) pollinators, especially native bees. Massed plantings are most effective, but even a few plants make a difference.

Be sure to purchase plants from pollinator-friendly nurseries, garden centers and suppliers that offer pollinator compatible
(non-sterile) plants and seeds suited for our local area. Also look for locally-grown starter plants and seeds at the annual Hill City Master Gardener Association’s ‘Festival of Gardening’ on May 7th at Miller Park. Don’t forget to keep an eye out for free seeds! One of my favorite sources is “roadside weed” seeds when I can beat the mowing crews to them.

Hill City Master Gardener Kris Lloyd writes of her success story in Masters in the Garden, “It is monarch madness at Bedford Hills [Elementary School]! In April 2014, we were sent about 30 milkweed plants by Monarch Watch through a grant program for schools. They struggled the first year, but this year [2015] the milkweed doubled and bloomed profusely in June.” The proof of the pudding was that it attracted monarchs, and Lloyd harvested seed to start additional milkweed plants for distribution to the school community this spring. Original funding from the National Resources Defense Council jump-started Lloyd’s successful efforts at Bedford Hills School, and there are other opportunities for corporate and philanthropic sponsorship of seed and plant resources.

Join the Challenge
The Million Pollinator Garden Challenge (millionpollinatorgardens.org) is a “nationwide call to action to preserve and create gardens and landscapes that help revive the health of…pollinators across America.” The campaign began in June 2015 to register one million public and private landscapes that support pollinators. Last summer I added more pollinator-friendly flowering plants to my garden and was thrilled when a dozen monarchs chose it for a fall migratory feasting layover.

My garden’s now registered with the Challenge and beckons visiting grandchildren to share the joy! All this “birds and bees” business can turn into a lot of family fun.

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Words & Photos by Susan Timmons

The ‘Why’ of Gardening

What’s up with gardeners anyway? What motivates us to plan, organize, manage and control a piece of this earth we call our garden? The obvious sensual pleasures of intriguing shapes and sizes, tantalizing colors, alluring fragrances and delicious produce often top the list. Yet our reasons for gardening run deeper than surface delights. So, let’s start digging.

But to begin, we need a tool—and the first one that pops to mind is the little graphic pyramid of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs I recall from Psych 101 many decades ago. With apologies to my scholarly friends in psychology for random musings on serious science, we’re ready now to unearth some of the “whys” of gardening.

Physiological
At the base of Maslow’s pyramid, our most basic human needs are physiological and, on this level, the answer to “Why?” is simple.

The earth has plants, and we need them for food and medicinal purposes to survive. Since the beginning of our time here on earth, we humans have gathered plant materials (grains, fruits, vegetables) wherever they grew in nature. We then began to cultivate them closer to home and livelihood, and small gardens evolved into farms.

Next, we leapt into agribusiness, biotech and chemical companies for mass-produced food and health products. And today, disillusioned with big business, many of us have joined the movement to return to growing our own fresh food, herbal remedies and ornamentals in home gardens and local farms.

Gardens also provide oxygen for the very air we breathe. In the 19th century, with increasing industrialization and concentration of masses of people in dirty, polluted cities in desperate need of air purification, Josep Fontserè, designer of the magnificent El Parc de la Ciutadella in Barcelona, noted that “gardens are for the city as lungs are for the human body.”

We gardeners know intuitively that gardens meet our need for fresh air and sunshine, exercise and mental rest for our health and well-being. Your Brain on Nature by Eva M. Selhub, MD, and Alan C. Logan, ND, actually provides scientific evidence on why we need nature for our “health, happiness and vitality.”

For some of us (including myself), we simply have a primal need to dig in the dirt—or in my case, red clay and mud. I’m no scientist, but I think it’s in our DNA.

Safety
Since the middle ages, walled and cloistered (and now fenced) gardens have offered protection from physical harm and loss of garden bounty to all sorts of predators—human and wildlife alike—to assure owners of meeting their need for security of their food supply. Thus, this brings us to “safety” as the next need in Maslow’s hierarchy.

Today we have laws and regulations to ensure the purity and safety of our food products and the prevention of ill-effects from chemicals. Yet gardeners who don’t trust big business are returning to growing their own in the belief that this is the safer and healthier choice.

Many gardeners are just trying to make a living. Gardens offer personal and financial security through employment for an entire sector of our economy in the food and green industries, from growers to distributors to sellers, and from local farmers markets and nurseries to grocery store chains and the big box stores. The economic impact of the environmental horticulture industry alone is estimated in the billions of dollars.

Gardens also meet our need for a psychological safety net, a sanctuary from cares, demands and threats of the world.

They serve as a retreat that engulfs body and mind into a safe place for mental health and healing.

Love and Belonging
With basic physical and safety needs met, we humans need connection with others and our gardens offer opportunity for friendship, family and intimacy. Literature through recorded history tells us how gardens meet the human need for love and belonging. In Victorian times, flowers were the language of love; a gift of bluebells meant kindness while tulips represented passion.

My garden club and master gardener friends are important to my well-being. We grow, give and exchange horticulture specimens, arrange flowers, share tips and commiserate in garden failures. We belong to each other in spirit and deed in our passion for gardening. This “belonging” means that we work together to share that passion in our community, pouring hours of our lives into garden education, conservation and restoration projects.

Gardens are also a place for living legacies. Mine includes daffodils passed down from generation to generation and as birthday gifts from Mom during the last years of her life, roses from cousin Patsy, mountain mint from sister Jan, garden phlox from neighbor Joyce, forget-me-nots from friend Susan, cleome from co-worker Linda and a Mother’s Day snowball bush from husband Tim.

It’s also a gathering place for family, where grown-ups revel in family ties that bind over dinner and a glass of wine, and kids run, jump, and play “hide and seek” and experience their first tea party.

Esteem
History is resplendent with extreme examples of royals and others whose need for acclaim and esteem resulted in flamboyant gardens equal to their extravagant edifaces. These are gardens that reflect wealth, power and control. Consider Versailles, Blenheim Palace or Hampton Court.

That ilk of gardener is all but gone, and many of the remaining showplace gardens of Europe, the United States and elsewhere are supported now not by personal or national wealth and control, but by public trust and tourism. These gardens continue to instill respect and esteem for their owners and managers.

Central Virginia gardeners and gardener lovers take pride in our public garden projects as well. We gain esteem from recognition of our hard work toward restoration and maintenance of the Old City Cemetery gravegarden, the Anne Spencer garden, Poplar Forest grounds and more.

Local gardeners enjoy and recognize each other’s garden successes, thereby satisfying what Maslow calls the need for esteem—respect of others and self-esteem. What gardener would deny feeling proud to be complimented on a prize winning daffodil, rose or tomato? Some of us can even satisfy this need by a few simple Facebook “likes” for a photo we post of a new bloom.

Self-Actualization
In his original hierarchy, the peak of Maslow’s pyramid was self-actualization, or “being the most you can be.” This is now recognized as an ethnocentric perspective unique to our individualistic culture. It conveys the basic idea of realizing one’s full potential after mastering the previous needs, and it tells us that the “why” of gardening is more than meeting physical, safety, love/belonging and self-esteem needs.
Michael Pollan, in Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education said, “A garden should make you feel you’ve entered privileged space—a place not just set apart but reverberant—and it seems to me that, to achieve this, the gardener must put some kind of twist on the existing landscape, turn its prose into something nearer poetry.” Or as Gertrude Jekyll, the famous English horticulturalist and garden designer, said, “Planting ground is painting a landscape for living things.”

My simple country garden, although never to be famous like the many designed by Gertrude Jekyll, is my artistic expression—an abstract expressionist painting of organic shapes and a riot of colors. Well, in truth, it’s more of a chaotic Jackson Pollack than a polished Gertrude Jekyll landscape. But, hey, it is what it is, and I can be!

For me, gardening and writing these musings meet personal self-actualization needs, hopefully with a benefit to others who may take pleasure in my garden and words, learn something new, see gardens in a new way or find inspiration to become a new gardener.

Self-Transcendence
Later in life, Maslow took his hierarchy theory a step further and added that “the self finds self-actualization in giving itself to some higher goal outside oneself, in altruism and spirituality.”

With altruism, self-actualization is realized in service to others without seeking benefit to self, as exemplified by master gardeners serving countless hours to instill in inner-city school children the value and benefit of gardens, raising food in urban deserts and sharing knowledge of gardens with others through the Speakers Bureau.

Members of The Garden Club of Virginia (GCV) also dedicate themselves to a cause that transcends individual self-actualization “to celebrate the beauty of the land, to conserve the gifts of nature and to challenge future generations to build on this heritage.” The GCV’s Historic Garden Week has raised millions of dollars for garden conservation and restoration projects across the Commonwealth, all for the public good.
I once read that “to nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul.” In 1918, Richardson Wright commented in House and Garden on the deep, quiet joy in gardening that grows outwardly from the heart. We gardeners know we serve only as bit players in the miracle of the transformation of a seed into a green leaf, bright flower or tasty fruit. But we do have a feeling when we’re grubbing in the dirt that we are “in at the creation” of something.

In our gardens we are transcended beyond self and are in touch with the spirit of place and our very souls. We have reached a holy place, our own Heaven on earth, Zen-zone, Nirvana. We know when this happens. And peace floods over us.

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WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHS BY SUSAN TIMMONS