How I grew a pollinator paradise

Would you rather have a perfectly tended lawn, or an imperfect barely tended pollinator garden? Good question, right? I think there is something to be said about letting your yard be a little wild.

When I moved into this little house, the yard was tidy but boring. Since I hired a guy to renovate the house, I needed a spot to put the dumpster. I allowed it to stay on the front lawn for months, and the guy promised he would resod it for me the following year. The next spring, I saw a large rectangular patch of dirt and had to turn it into a garden. So I tilled and amended and planted, and declined the resodding. It didn’t do too badly!

That first year I had no idea what I was doing. I had no plan. I planted a butterfly bush, which is pretty but can be invasive, a catmint plant, a reblooming rose bush, and some digitalis plants that I ripped from the ground. I also threw in some bachelor’s button seeds and some zinnia seeds, and eventually some sunflowers. Everything took off. I so enjoyed being out there and pruning or deadheading and I loved the low buzz of bees around me.

I started noticing all the insects my garden attracted. Which bugs did I have to be afraid of? Turns out, none. You can coexist with the bugs. So I let them be and eventually the monarchs came.

I realized milkweed was growing despite my best efforts. When I first saw the baby milkweed, I thought it was a type of invasive bamboo, so I pulled them up. Some got the best of me and grew anyway.

Milkweed is an incredibly important plant for the monarch species. It is the only food the monarch catepillars will eat. Monarchs lay eggs on the plants too. After the catepillars emerge as butterflies, they will drink nectar from other plants, but the milkweed is critical to their development.

Now I have some shaggy looking plants and what we will call a wildflower garden. I love it. Messy, imperfect, and attracts all the right things. This year the monarchs have done really well. I also see lots of honey bees as well as beneficial wasps. I let them be and they leave me alone.

The best part of this little patch is that you can let it go wild. I choose to tend it a little, but mostly because grass loves it there too.

Pollinators are important for us too. We need them so our plant foods can develop. Think about those flowers on your tomato, squash, eggplant, or cucumber plants. They all need pollinators to fruit.

In my area (zone 5a/b), you can find native plants, but you can also find seed bombs which have a mix of milkweed and wildflowers. Butterfly bushes are fragrant and beautiful, but some towns consider them to be invasive. I cut mine back to the ground every year to keep it in check. The bees also love my catmint plant, sunflowers, cosmos, zinnias, and bachelor’s buttons. I also have several bee balm plants which are huge pollinator attractors. Many of these plants will self sow, meaning they drop their seeds and will grow again the next year. Even my herbs, which are untended and have gone to flower, attract the bees and wasps.

My final point is about dandelions. Do I love them? NO! But, they are one of the earliest food sources for our pollinators so I let them go. It’s less work for me anyway.

Lawns are not necessary and are a boatload of work. Think about tending a pollinator garden which makes you look cool, but also means a lot less work!