Find a corner for a pollinator garden this spring

Editor:

Every year in February I send a letter to The Creemore Echo encouraging you to establish a vegetable garden at your house. Now, this September, I am also asking you to set up a pollinator garden as well.

How are pollinator gardens different from vegetable gardens? A pollinator garden has wild plants that flower and support insects.

You probably have noticed how windshields in summer are no longer plastered with dead insects. Shockingly, our insect population is in rapid decline.

Among the insects in decline are wild bees. It has been stated that there are 400 different kinds of wild bees in Ontario alone.

Honey bees are not entirely responsible for the pollination of our fruits and vegetables. Wild bees and insects do much of it. And if you have noticed that bird populations are also in decline, remember that wild bees pollinate the plants that produce seeds to feed the birds.

Find a corner on your property next spring for your pollinator garden. Also, don’t be quick to mow the wild plants down or use herbicides to kill them growing in other spots.

Mother Nature will thank you.

Helen Blackburn,

Websterville.