Drum roll please!……..It is National Pollinator Week starting today and you need to start counting those bees. Go to my post Pollinator Week to see the drill, but it is real simple. Name the flower, and then do a quick count, say five minutes each flower of any pollinators that visit. Bees are of course the poster child for this campaign, but remember bees are only one part of the equation.

Count butterflies, hummingbirds, moths, flies- basically anything that visits the flower by wings or just crawling. Do as many or as few counts as you have time for this week and click on Great Sunflower Project, and if you haven’t already registered, set up an account and input your results. This project collects data from ordinary gardeners all over the country to track pollinator numbers so that scientists can have a better understanding of the health of our populations in North America. Consolidation of all this data gives scientists hard numbers when they determine the best strategies in tackling this problem.

Citizen Science at its best!

Bee One in a Million

To take this effort even further, you can join the Million Pollinator Garden Challenge which is a nationwide call to action to preserve and create gardens and landscapes that help to revive and sustain the health of all pollinators.

Aiming to move millions of people outdoors to create nectar rich gardens, this initiative fosters a connection between pollinators and the food that we eat. The goal is to get people out in the great outdoors and start planting flowering plants. You notice that I say “flowering plants” and not just “flowers”? Flowering trees and shrubs are just as important as perennial and annual flowers. And if you can plant native ones, all the better. Go to Plant These For the Bees to see the best strategies on attracting pollinators in the garden. And check out Monarch Way Station if you are interested in Monarchs in particular.

 My Sunflowers and Zinnias here in the mid-Atlantic aren’t quite blooming yet, but I do have lots of other flowers that are popping out that I can start my count on. Happy counting!