Bee The Change

How can we make our gardens more pollination friendly?

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With all the current talk on the decline of the bee population in Ireland, I decided to head to the All-Ireland pollinator Plan conference in Cork this month to learn more on what I could do as a garden designer to help reverse this decline. Why is this decline of concern to the people of Ireland? While there are other insects involved in pollination, most of the pollination of plants on this island is carried out by bees. In Ireland we have 98 different species of bees, of which twenty are bumble bees, seventy-seven are solitary bees and only one species is the honey bee. Unfortunately our bee population is in trouble with one third of them threatened with extinction. We need to try to reverse this in order to prevent the extinction of these bees. One way we can help is to provide ample sources of food and places to rest for the bees in our gardens.

Ways to make your garden more pollination friendly

• Plant a selection of pollination-friendly plants in your garden which will bloom in a succession of blooms throughout the year to supply the bees with a steady source of food throughout the year.

• Include lots of native plants in your garden to support the local bees.

• Minimise the use of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides in your garden, basically don’t use any of the ‘cides’. Most over the counter sprays contain neonicotinoids which are not good for pollinating insects or indeed for humans.