Where would Plant City be without pollinators? Certain crop plants, such as squash and cucumber, would never bear fruit. The Garden Club would probably cease to exist, and the downtown farmers’ market certainly would not have sweet, local honey for sale.
This spring and summer, when you are enjoying the great outdoors, don’t forget to thank the birds and the bees for all of their hard work to keep Plant City beautiful and help some of its farmers succeed.
Flowers attract hummingbirds and butterflies, which suck up the sweet nectar within. Bats come in contact with flowers as they hunt for insects or eat trees’ fruit. And bees collect prized pollen to take back to their hives.
When these pollinators move on to another flower, the pollen they inadvertently or purposefully collected at the previous flower rubs off. This allows the flower’s reproduction cycle to continue. Many times, the plant involved is not just ornamental, but an agricultural crop.
“We have lost the vast majority of pollinators because of loss of habitat, and also because of spraying chemicals in our yards,” Peter Sleszynski, an instructor of environmental science at Hillsborough Community College, Plant City, said. “I’m an ecologist by trade and see the value of every single one of them.”
Insects
Butterflies are some of the most beloved insects all over the world, often because they are bright and beautiful and pose absolutely no threat to humans.
But any gardener knows that butterflies are more than just a fluttering embellishment amongst the flowers.
“Butterflies are a sign of a good ecyosystem, which means everything is well-balanced,” Christy Linke, who is an officer in the Plant City Garden Club and chair of the Birds, Bees and Butterflies committee for the Florida Federation of Garden Clubs, said.
Many other insects pollinate like butterflies, including beetles, flies and bees. They help the blossoms beautify Plant City’s many gardens and parks.
Linke recommends plants such as dutchman’s pipevine, cassia, fennel, passion vine, native paw paw shrub and white swamp milkweed for attracting butterflies. Milkweed is particularly important because it is the host plant for caterpillars of the endangered monarch butterfly.
“Try to combine several plants of the same species in a large grouping, with clusters of colors, which seems to be more apparent and attractive to adult butterflies,” Linke said. “Provide a mix of colors, shapes and sizes of flowers. Bottom line when it comes to choosing adult nectar sources for your garden is diversity.”
Bats
Many people have a fear of bats because of certain common myths and stereotypes about them. But it is important to look out for the wellbeing of these aerial mammals.
One of the biggest threats to bats is deforestation, which leads to habitat loss. Also, their sources of food might soon become scarce, because of the abundance of chemicals used to kill off tasty treats such as mosquitoes and moths.
“In our society, we have become very accustomed to using chemicals for most of the things we do,” Sleszynski said. “Some of it is simply not necessary.”
If bats are taken care of, there might not be such a need for those harsh pesticides.
“The amount of insects that they consume is staggering,” Sleszynski said. “So that’s another solution to spraying, if you have a lot of bats naturally that eat the insects.”
There is a bat house, supplied by the University of Florida, in the teaching garden at HCC Plant City, where Sleszynski teaches students about pollinators and many other environmental issues. The garden’s success is thanks, in part, to the bats that have taken up residence there.
There is minimal risk to human health by attracting bats to your yard and supporting bat conservation efforts. For instructions on how to build a bat house similar to the one at HCC Plant City, go to edis.ifas.ufl.edu/uw290.
Pollinator-Friendly Gardening Workshops This May
The UF/IFAS Hillsborough County Extension hosts a number of gardening workshops each month at libraries around the county.
Introduction to Beekeeping
6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 6
Bloomingdale Regional Public Library, 1906 Bloomingdale Ave., Valrico
Wildflowers, Native Plants and Native Ferns
6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 12
Seffner-Mango Branch Library, 410 N. Kingsway Road, Seffner
Attracting Wildlife to Your Backyard
10:30 to 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, May 19
Charles J. Fendig Public Library, 3909 W. Neptune St., Tampa
Butterfly Gardening
6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 26
C. Blythe Andrews Jr. Public Library, 2607 E. Dr. MLK Jr. Blvd., Tampa