permaculture

["rafter t. sass" <rafter@liberationecology.org>]

Pretty significant findings for polyculture guilding...


rafter t. sass
The Liberation Ecology Project
liberationecology.org
518-567-7407
skype: raughter



> -------------------------------------------------
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/garden/30GARDEN.html
> The New York Times
> April 30, 2009
> In the Garden
> Come Hither, Bumblebee, and Pollinate
> By ANNE RAVER
>
> MY native black cherry tree is covered with little white flowers,  
> and if the bees and other pollinators do their job, I'll have plenty  
> of sweet black cherries by midsummer.
>
> My Korean spicebushes (Viburnum carlesii) are also in full bloom,  
> their clusters of pinkish-white flowers filling the air with the  
> heady scent of cinnamon and honey. But it's striking how few bees  
> are sipping nectar from these Asian shrubs compared with my native  
> redbud and sassafras trees, which are literally vibrating with  
> pollinators.
>
> It bears out the research that Gordon Frankie, an entomologist at  
> the University of California, Berkeley, has begun in gardens around  
> that city, where he and his students have surveyed 1,000 different  
> plants, both native and nonnative.
>
> "Only 50 were native plants, but of that 50, 80 percent were  
> attractive to pollinators," Professor Frankie said. "In contrast,  
> only 10 percent of the 950 nonnatives were attractive to pollinators."
>
> My spicebushes don't seem to be among those pollinator favorites,  
> but I would never trade them, or my Asian lilacs and peonies, for  
> natives. So I am adding native plants wherever I can to feed the  
> pollinators - in particular the native bees, because there are so  
> many different species, and far fewer nonnative ones, like the  
> European honeybee (Apis mellifera), which doesn't seem to be much in  
> evidence around my old farm in Maryland these days.
>
> Douglas W. Tallamy, an ecologist at the University of Delaware, and  
> the author of "Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain  
> Wildlife in our Gardens" (Timber Press, 2007), inspired my new  
> plantings. "We have 4,000 species of native bees in North America,"  
> Mr. Tallamy said. "If we gave them food - flowering native plants -  
> and a place to build their nests, they would be able to take up the  
> slack from decreasing honeybee populations."
>
> While some native bees are particular about the plants they like,  
> about half are generalists, scientists say, which explains why I see  
> native bumblebees and mason bees on my pear tree, an Asian plant.  
> And why my unmown yard is abuzz with pollinators, from tiny wasps  
> and flies to solitary native bees, nuzzling the dandelions  
> (transglobal weeds), violets (found throughout the temperate world)  
> and clover (largely European).
>
> So don't be too quick to mow. Those so-called weeds are important  
> sources of food for pollinators, which need protein and sugar to  
> build up their populations. We need to keep feeding them from early  
> spring to hard frost if we want vigorous, well-pollinated plants.
>
> Crops like tomatoes, peas and beans are self-pollinating, but they  
> still have to be shaken by the wind or bees to release the pollen  
> inside the flowers. Bumblebees and a few other native bees are able  
> to vibrate the flower - something a European honeybee cannot do -  
> shaking pollen from the stamens to the stigma, where it fertilizes  
> the ovules that will become seeds inside a pod (think snap peas or  
> green beans!) or fruit (juicy tomatoes! strawberries!). These bees  
> also travel from flower to flower, cross-pollinating, which improves  
> the vigor of plants and the size of that tomato.
>
> Other crops like the cucurbits - melons, cucumbers and squash - are  
> entirely dependent on pollinators for fertilization, because they  
> have separate male and female flowers.
>
> Both honeybees and natives do an excellent job of pollinating such  
> plants when they are around, but all these pollinators are in  
> serious decline from many stressors, and scientists suspect that  
> habitat loss is key.
>
> David Salman, the founder and chief horticulturist at High Country  
> Gardens, a mail-order nursery in Santa Fe, N.M., said he has noticed  
> a big decrease in pollinators as the fields of wildflowers around  
> his greenhouses have been developed.
>
> "I'm not getting the seed production I used to, because I'm  
> physically cut off from pollinators," he said. "I am excited beyond  
> words about this resurgence in home food production, but the big  
> thing left out of the equation is bringing pollinators into these  
> gardens, particularly in urban areas."
>
> In the kitchen garden, where many plants are a mix of European,  
> Asian and American species, I don't worry so much about whether an  
> herb or flower that attracts pollinators is native or not. I just go  
> for diversity, and it all seems to work out.
>
> So I'm not going to give up my Mediterranean lavender, catmint,  
> oregano or any of the other age-old plants imported to the New  
> World. I'm just packing in more natives.
>
> In a wide border around the kitchen garden, I've planted Purple  
> Smoke, a native baptisia or indigo, with charcoal stems and violet- 
> blue flowers the same shape as those of the sugar-snap and snow peas  
> climbing a nearby fence. And I've put in two indigo plants, rather  
> than one, to get a good six-foot-wide clump, because according to my  
> "Pollinator Conservation Handbook" (Xerces Society/The Bee Works,  
> 2003), native pollinators are more likely to home in on flowers when  
> they're in masses at least four feet across.
>
> I've put in more native coneflowers, too: Echinacea purpurea, the  
> purple coneflower, and E. paradoxa, the yellow coneflower, as well  
> as black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) and Rudbeckia maxima, the so- 
> called cabbage-leaf coneflower, a six-foot plant with big blue-green  
> leaves and bright yellow flowers.
>
> "I love the purple coneflowers and rudbeckias, the ratibidas, or  
> prairie coneflowers, which are all wonderful for bumblebees," Mr.  
> Salman said. "If you have melons and squash, plant these right in  
> the patch."
>
> Other native perennials that provide plenty of nectar and pollen  
> include giant hyssop, coreopsis, larkspur, Joe-pye weed, blanket  
> flower, sunflower, lupine, evening primrose, poppy, penstemon,  
> salvia and sedum. Annual and biennial flowers like milkweed, spider  
> flower, cosmos, poppy, mullein, daisy and verbena also draw  
> pollinators. So do wild roses and blueberry bushes, raspberry and  
> blackberry brambles, elderberry and sumac, and nonnative herbs like  
> lavender, mint, basil, marjoram, rosemary, borage and lantana.
>
> And don't forget late-summer favorites like goldenrod and asters.
>
> Ecologists are encouraging home gardeners to experiment with all  
> these plants, and to observe what pollinates what. It's as  
> fascinating as bird-watching.