Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia

Promoting environmentally sound gardening practices for over 35 years!

Rudbeckia Fulgida Banner July 2022
Rudbeckia fulgida (orange coneflower). Photo by Mary Free

Pollinators

A Future for Fireflies?

This is the summer of our climate emergency on full display. . . .The brief timeframe for decisive action on climate change seems suddenly to have collapsed upon us. We hope for a reprieve. We see little relief in sight, especially when observed on a global scale. Yet, and maybe because of this, a hyperlocal focus on the sustainability potential of my modest suburban yard has kept me going. Is this optimism or head-in-the-sand behavior? Maybe both, but taking concrete steps to make even a small patch of land a refuge for biodiversity can feel like a tonic against mounting climate despair.

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June is Pollinator Month

June is all about pollinators and how everyone can help support them. Three-fourths of the world’s flowering plants and about 35% of the world’s food plants depend on pollinators to reproduce, and 96% of North American land birds rely on butterfly and moth caterpillars to feed their young.
#PollinatorWeek

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June is Pollinator Month

June is all about pollinators and how gardeners like you can help revive their declining populations. Three-fourths of the world’s flowering plants and about 35% of the world’s food crops depend on pollinators to reproduce. 96% of North American land birds rely on butterfly and moth caterpillars to rear their youn

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Bees for Pollinator Week

The Xerces Society emphasizes that we can help bumble bees thrive by providing three key types of habitat: plants offering pollen and nectar on which to forage, nesting sites, and places to overwinter.  Extension Master Gardeners encourage the public to create, protect, restore, and enhance high quality bumble bee habitat. By implementing these practices and creating corridors between habitat, we can help slow, stop, and reverse the recent decline of bumble bee populations.

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Flowers That Attract Pollinators and Robbers to a Garden

The shape, color, structure and odor of a flower usually determine the type of pollinators it attracts. A flower requires a pollinator that will visit it regularly and successfully transfer pollen in and/or between it and other flowers of its species to ensure fruit and seed production. For the service of pollination, the flower provides a reward: usually food such as nectar and/or pollen. Thus plants and their pollinators enjoy a mutualistic relationship.

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Happy Pollinator Week 2020!

Pollinator Week 2020: Happy Pollinator Week!
Join the Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia in observing this week, June 22–28, 2020, by learning more about some of the insects, birds, bats and other small mammals that pollinate at least 80 percent of our flowering plants and about 33 percent of our food crops as well as what you can do to sustain pollinators.

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