Garden Club of Cape Coral | Pollinator safe? Or deadly?
By SHERIE BLEILER
news@breezenewspapers.com
We are at the beginning of our growing season. My amaryllis blooms are beginning to pop out of the ground. Plants are leafing out after our unusually cold winter. Birds are singing and beginning to nest. Our butterfly, bee and insect population is growing. But are we accidentally killing them? Are we inviting them to our flowers and then poisoning them?
Interest in pollinator plants has increased. Nurseries have begun to label flowers with ample nectar or pollen as “pollinator friendly.” But the desire for beautiful flowering plants around our homes still drives most of the plant trade, not plants for butterflies or bees. In order to keep flowers looking their best, seeds and soil are routinely treated with bug killers. Neonicotinoid pesticides, “neonics” for short, are commonly used because they are absorbed into the plant tissues lasting for months or more than a year in woody plants.
How much harm can neonics cause? On a milkweed plant grown to feed monarch butterflies, caterpillars will start eating the leaves and just drop to the ground and die. Bees gathering pollen from the flowers will fly away, seemingly fine. But it will change the behavior of the worker bees, making them lose direction and have trouble foraging. It will cause them to be lax in cleaning the inside of the hive, leaving it open to disease and causing a decline in the hive population. The pollen fed to immature young bees will kill them. Along with habitat loss and disease, plant poisons are a major source of our declining bee population. Hundreds of studies have validated the harm neonics have on bee populations, yet sadly, they are not banned here. Neonics are applied to golf courses, agricultural fields as well as nursery plants.
We can help:
1. By adding some healthy habitat to our home yards to feed pollinators.
2. By not adding poison to our yards, which kills the “good” bugs with the bad and eliminates food needed for birds, especially young chicks. Instead of monthly pest control, use them as needed. Only kill certain bugs who are a particular problem at this time.
How can we be sure we are buying non-poisonous plants? It’s not very easy. Jeremy Rhoden, horticultural agent for Marion County UF/IFAS, suggests, try asking staff at the nursery several questions:
1. Where can I find pollinator attracting plants? This question will also indicate to the nursery that pollinator plants are a thing people are interested in.
2. Do you have native plant species? Natives are easily recognized by our local bees and butterflies as having the food they need. They also require less water and no fertilizer.
3. Has the plant or seed been treated with pesticides? For big box stores, this is a hard question to answer because they get their plants from big growers. They have no idea what has happened before they received them. Local nurseries have a better chance of knowing the answer. But all growers are often required not to sell “buggie” plants. Thus, most of the soil is drenched with insecticide, which is absorbed into the plant tissues.
Your best bet is to work with a nursery you trust to answer these questions and help you select poison free plants and seeds.
While on the subject of substances that kill, please do not use rat bait to control rodents in your yard. Here in Cape Coral, poisoned rodents often kill bald eagles, hawks and our burrowing owls who will eat them and feed them to their young. In fact, one burrowing owl can eat 300 mice or rats per year! Invite one to your yard. Or use snap traps or box traps for rodents instead.
Help keep your garden alive with all of nature’s diverse creatures! We are nature, too.
Sherie Bleiler volunteers at the Cape Coral Library butterfly garden and the butterfly garden at Sands Park. She was the first president of the Garden Club of Cape Coral. Visit gardenclubofcapecoral.com. Like us on Facebook and Instagram.