Pollinators are a gardener’s best friend.
The strategies that work best:
1) Stop using pesticides. Pesticides will kill both the bad bugs AND your pollinators!
2) Plan a garden filled with color. Honeybees have good color vision so a garden with a gay profusion of zinnias or lilies will draw them. Big swaths of flowers will bring them on.
3) Interplant flowers with veggies. Get more fruits and vegetables by drawing pollinators to less showy food plants.
All different shapes and colors are best.
5) More than 3,000 different species of bees and butterflies depend on a range of flowers.Bees can depend on a multi-season garden.
6) Support a wider range of pollinating insects by planning for year-round bloom.
7) Sunny sheltered flower gardens are ideal. Wind can blow the tiny pollinators around, so provide a windbreak.
8) Provide drinking water! Shallow pools are best. Shallow, as in, up to the bee’s knees!