How to Attract Pollinators to your Garden

Have you had this happen to you yet, where you grow a big, beautiful plant that has a lot of foliage and flowers, but then all of the flowers just kind of die off and no fruit actually forms? There could be a few factors that might contribute to flowers dying off, the wrong temperature, inconsistent watering, and not enough nutrients in the soil can cause this, but a big reason, especially with plants that have separate male and female flowers, is a lack of pollinators.

Pollinators come in all shapes and sizes. Bees and butterflies are the ones that everyone thinks of, but even beetles, moths, birds, wasps, and flies contribute to the pollination in your garden. These various creatures will flit from flower to flower drinking the nectar and spreading the pollen.

Male and female flowers on one plant. Notice the female flower looks like it has a small fruit below the petals, while the male is just a long stem.

Most vegetable plants will have either separate male and female flowers, or what are called "perfect" flowers. The separate male/female flowers means that there will be some flowers that form a stamen, which contains pollen and acts as the male reproductive organ, and some flowers that contain a pistil that needs to receive the pollen from the stamen of the male flower. The one with the pistil is the female flower and will be the one to form the fruit. Sound familiar? Perfect flowers are a little different because they contain both the stamen and pistil in one, but even these need a little help to make sure that the pollen falls into the pistil.

Now, you can go out to your garden everyday with a little paintbrush and painstakingly hand pollinate all of the flowers. You can do this by rubbing the paintbrush against the stamen of a male flower and then bring the pollen that you collect to the pistil in the female flower. Or you can simply do this one simple trick that will not only add beauty and variety, but will also attract all of those bees and butterflies that your garden needs. You just need to plant flowers.

If you are like me, and space is limited in your garden, growing flowers may seem impossible when you're trying to grow as much food as you can. I get it. But it is so important that you find a way to make space. Just add a few flower seeds to the edges of your garden beds, or add a few containers around the sides. Whatever you can do to make sure you have a good variety. You can't rely only on the flowers that form on your edible plants to attract all of the pollinators that you'll need. Also keep in mind that there are plenty of beautiful flowers out there that are edible and can add color and texture to your foods. Nasturtiums, borage, calendulas are great examples of edible flowers that the bees will also love.

I know that growing flowers may seem like a waste of time, money, and space, but I'm here to tell you that you can't leave out this critical component in your garden. There are so many benefits to growing ornamental flowers alongside your edible garden, so don't skip this step!

What are some of your favorite flowers to grow?