I’ve done a lot of posting over the last week or two about what I’m planting–my herbs, both for me and for the pollinators, the annuals in the herbs garden, my indoor succulent corner (which no pollinators can get to, of course, unless they accidentally get inside the screened porch–and why would they want to?
As I was thinking back over this and thinking forward to Pollinator Week, which occurs this year June 17-23, I realized that for all my talk about native plants, I hadn’t planted any native plants.
Is this a catastrophe? No. I already have a lot of native plants in my yard. But as someone who talks a lot about native plants, I do like to add them when I can.
But one thing I didn’t do this year was add any trees, shrubs or perennials–the sorts of plants that are native plants. So that’s why no natives this season.
So should I consider my whole season a loss? I guess that depends on what you are trying to accomplish. This season, I am lucky that I can get a little gardening in. I am hoping to be able to harvest just a few tomatoes and some green beans–and to have some fresh herbs to cook with.
I’d like a few pretty flowers to look at and I have chosen those flowers with pollinators in mind. In the past, I have seen both hummingbirds and sphinx moths on impatiens so I chose those for a semi-shaded spot.
For the sunnier spots, I chose annuals in colors of blue and yellow, primarily to attract bees and butterflies. One of the containers has some lantana, which I know the butterflies in my area love.
My earlier spring container, which was a Wordless Wednesday photo, was violets and alyssum. I have watched honeybees and smaller bees on that until I moved it to a shadier spot where I don’t get to observe it so readily.
So I am not feeling too sad about the gardening season so far. I am just hoping that the deer don’t eat the green beans, as they have in some years. Time will tell!
Gardendaze 
I have never been one to worry about pollinators. There is so much more for them in the urban gardens of the Santa Clara Valley than there had ever been naturally. I mean, our region is naturally chaparral. There were not many flowers for pollinators originally. Now, the home gardens and landscapes are filled with all sorts of (mostly exotic) flowers for pollinators. Pollinators are actually distracted from plants in the wild that rely on them.
I have often wondered about this. Here in Connecticut we have just decided to plant 58 more median strips for the pollinators. That’s 58 MORE, in addition to however many we have. You can drive up and down the east coast and see the medians full of wild flowers for pollinators. So do they really need my backyard?
The answer, I think, is yes, because every yard around me is literally poisoned by some yard service or other. I can barely walk my dog some weeks because of the yellow signs advising me that all the lawns have been poisoned in tandem. It’s sickening, particularly because we all live around a little lake so you know where all that poison goes when it rains. It’s going into their gardens and then into our watershed. Ugh.
So I like to this of my yard as at least a little pollinator oasis. They can stop there on their way to the median strips.
Karla