Pollinator week is a special time for Harlequin’s Gardens – a time when we can celebrate the hard-work of bees (honeybees, solitary bees, bumblebees) wasps, ants, flies and bee flies, butterflies and moths, beetles, some bats and birds, and some mammals. They’re all around us, connecting the dots between flowers and food.
Come check out our special pollinator display, which is our whole facility! Our perennial signage is marked with bee, hummingbird, and butterfly icons, but almost everything is important to bees, of which we have over 500 species here in Boulder County alone. Even our native bunch grasses can provide nesting sites for bumblebees in the dried leaves at the bottom.
The three best ways to help pollinators are:
- Stop or reduce your pesticide use, especially insecticides and fungicides. This doesn’t mean that your plants have to look scraggly; Harlequin’s has non-toxic alternatives and alternative plants. If you use a lawn care company, chat with them about what they’re using.
- Provide safe habitat. This includes not only safe pesticide free plants that keep your garden blooming all season, but nesting habitat as well. About 75% of our native bees live in the ground in plain-old Colorado dirt. For the remaining cavity nesters, we have clean culture materials like replaceable tube liners for (next year’s) mason bees and variety packs for other species.
- Encourage others to do the same. This includes your neighbors, HOAs, City and County lands, roadsides, and right of ways. We have pollinator plant lists you can show others to give them ideas.
Other Resources Include: