Pollinator Plants

 

    Happy Pollinator Week! In celebration of those critters that fertilize our home gardens, let’s take a look at different plants and habitats that they love. Below you’ll find a list of plants that Sunshine Garden Center has stocked and ready for your pollinators at home! Stick around to the end to get a hint for our Pollinator Week Social Media Challenge on Saturday, June 21st!

    Native Perennials

Native pollinators, such as bees and other insects, outnumber honeybees and are an important cause to support. Many of these creatures live solitary lives and have short lifespans, often just a year, but they are incredibly effective pollinators. Their unique, pollen-collecting hairs and wide-ranging foraging habits help sustain our local ecosystems. The best way to support them is to plant native species to create a welcoming habitat for these essential pollinators.

Sunshine Garden Center carries a variety of native cultivars for you to add to your garden. Some of these include:

• Joe Pye Weed
• Big Bluestem grass
• Butterfly Bush
• Swamp Milkweed 
• Blazing star varieties
• Turtlehead

    Pollinator Friendly Annuals

Although we support native plantings, there are hundreds of annuals that are absolute pollinator magnets! Planting these annuals in a container, bed, or box will increase the amount of pollinators that visit your yard, and nothing is better than seeing new butterflies and hummingbirds stop by for a drink.

Sunny annuals:

• Verbena
• Celosia
• Lantana
• Black & Blue salvia
• Pentas
• Bat Plant (cuphea)
• Zinnia
• Angelonia

Shady annuals: 

• Fuschia
• Streptocarpella

    Pollinator Friendly Perennials

These perennial pollinator plants remain in your soil year-round and, with proper care, return season after season. Likewise, the same pollinators will revisit year after year, drawn to the irresistible nectar these plants provide.

• Ornamental Onions
• Sedum
• Yarrow
• Coreopsis
• French Lavender
• Pincushion flower
• Oriental Poppy
• Shasta Daisy
• Coneflower
• Beardtongue Penstemon
• Delphinium
• Catmint
• Salvia
• Black Eyed Susan  
• Lupine
• Monarda

Pollinator Friendly Trees & Shrubs

Some fruit trees and bushes require pollinators in order to fruit! Other bushes and trees offer succulent flowers prior to setting seed. These hardy nursery plants are reliable and offer both habitat and food for our friends.

• Lilac
• Spiraea
• Ninebark
• Chokeberry
• Privet
• Hydrangea

We challenge you, sometime this week, to go outside, touch some grass, and watch those pollinators. Pull up a chair to your brightest flowers, take a deep, meditative breath, and watch them work. You’ll quickly notice many tiny little bees, and bigger ones like bumble bees and honey bees. Other bugs you may see are beetles or stink bugs. Occasionally, you may see a butterfly, dragonfly, or hummingbird; what a treat! 

Find any of the plants above at Sunshine Garden Center in Diamond, IL. Availability is not guaranteed. 

Courtney