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Celebrate pollinators this month, especially


With more than enough artichokes to eat, this community gardener let the rest go to flower. The result was a honeybee rave. (Photo: Kathy Morrison)


Support the hard-working creatures that make food and flowers possible

With so many vegetables and other plants flowering right now, it's no wonder that June has been designated National Pollinator Month by the National Wildlife Federation.

Pollinators are responsible for assisting more than 80 percent of the world's flowering plants to reproduce, according to the USDA Forest Service. They provide an estimated 1 in 3 bites of food we eat.

And while bees do much of the heavy lifting when it comes to pollination, they have help from many other creatures: Birds, butterflies, moths, wasps, flies, beetles and even bats contribute.

Here are five ways to help pollinators in your garden and in your neighborhood:


2) Let some of your herb and food plants go to flower. Designate a certain portion of the garden or even just one plant as a pollinator plant. Ever seen bees react to fluorescent purple artichoke flowers? It's party city!

3)  Plant pollinator-friendly plants in clumps, which are more likely to entice them, especially hummingbirds. Hummers are drawn to long, tubular flowers in the warm spectrum: orange, yellow and especially red.

Monarch caterpillars happily devour leaves of a tropical milkweed plant.
(Photo courtesy Elizabeth Riley)
4) Love butterflies? Remember that they start as caterpillars, which eat leaves. You have to put up with some chewed leaves to get those gorgeous butterflies.

5) Most important: Avoid using broad-spectrum insecticides in the garden. Wiping out the good bugs along with one troublesome pest is bad for the environment and bad for us. Read any insecticide label before using it. Don't deploy the equivalent of a bulldozer when a trowel will do.

Bonus note: Here's a fun thing to share with young people in your life: A National Wildlife Federation kid-friendly webinar called "Pollinators All Around Us."

-- Kathy Morrison






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Garden Checklist for week of April 20

Before possible showers at the end of the week, take advantage of all this nice sunshine – and get to work!

* Set out tomato, pepper and eggplant transplants.

* From seed, plant beans, beets, cantaloupes, carrots, corn, cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, radishes and squash.

* Plant onion sets.

* In the flower garden, plant seeds for asters, cosmos, celosia, marigolds, salvia, sunflowers and zinnias.

* Transplant petunias, zinnias, geraniums and other summer bloomers.

* Plant perennials and dahlia tubers for summer bloom.

* Plant summer bulbs, such as gladiolus and tuberous begonias.

* Transplant lettuce and cabbage seedlings.

* Smell orange blossoms? Feed citrus trees with a low dose of balanced fertilizer (such as 10-10-10) during bloom to help set fruit. Keep an eye out for ants.

* Apply slow-release fertilizer to the lawn.

* Thoroughly clean debris from the bottom of outdoor ponds or fountains.

* Trim dead flowers but not leaves from spring-flowering bulbs such as daffodils and tulips. Those leaves gather energy to create next year's flowers. Also, give the bulbs a fertilizer boost after bloom.

* Spring brings a flush of rapid growth, and that means your garden is really hungry. Give shrubs and trees a dose of a slow-release fertilizer. Or mulch with a 1-inch layer of compost.

* Start thinning fruit that's formed on apple and stone fruit trees -- you'll get larger fruit at harvest (and avoid limb breakage) if some is thinned now. The UC recommendation is to thin fruit when it is about 3/4 of an inch in diameter. Peaches and nectarines should be thinned to about 6 inches apart; smaller fruit such as plums and pluots can be about 4 inches apart. Apricots can be left at 3 inches apart. Apples and pears should be thinned to one fruit per cluster of flowers, 6 to 8 inches apart.

* Azaleas and camellias looking a little yellow? If leaves are turning yellow between the veins, give them a boost with chelated iron.

* Pinch chrysanthemums back to 12 inches for fall flowers. Cut old stems to the ground.

* Weed, weed, weed! Don’t let unwanted plants go to seed.

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