{"id":1180,"date":"2025-05-08T13:38:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T17:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/fultonag\/?p=1180"},"modified":"2025-05-08T13:38:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T17:38:11","slug":"bees-and-birds-and-native-blooms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/fultonag\/2025\/05\/bees-and-birds-and-native-blooms\/","title":{"rendered":"Bees and Birds and Native Blooms"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Jason Parker, Fulton County Master Gardener Extension Volunteer<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

May is the heart of springtime, and the scent of flowers is in the air. Those scents, and the lovely colors that accompany them, are meant to attract attention. Our bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds are becoming active and beginning to play their annual role as pollinators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I looked it up, it turns out bees and butterflies aren\u2019t \u201csmelling\u201d like people do but using chemical receptors on their antennae to detect nectar. Hummingbirds can smell things to avoid but are more visual, looking for bright colors like red to signal available nectar. Thinking about the bees and the birds led me to wonder about next steps for my gardening efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Native flowers blooming in Master Gardener Jason Parker’s pollinator garden. Image by Jason Parker.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On a sunny slope out front I\u2019ve been turning my formerly horrible vinca slope into a native pollinator garden. After I removed the vinca (\u201cremoved\u201d is an inadequate word for pulling that cursed vine out by hand), the slope spent a winter under tarps, and last season growing sunflowers. Nothing like gardening to practice patience! This year I\u2019ve managed to coax some wallflowers and cow cockle from the ground. They\u2019re my first real pollinator success and what came up from the wildflower seed packet mom sent me. Neither is native, but neither is invasive, something is better than nothing (or vinca), and they add beautiful color and scent at my front door. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But bee-ing \ud83d\ude09 non-native, these flowers don\u2019t attract the variety of pollinators that Georgia native flowers would. And being impatient, I want to put something in now that might bloom this year. In my search, I\u2019ve come across the State Botanical Garden of Georgia\u2019s Pollinator Plants of the Year<\/a> and some solid additions to my planting plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beardtongue<\/a> is a summer bloomer and \u201cwell-known hummingbird magnet.\u201d Sold! I\u2019m also pretty sure there\u2019s some 2024 summer blooming winner yellow and pink blossomed spotted horsemint<\/a> coming up out there now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
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beardtongue (Penstemon<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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climbing aster (Ampelaster carolinianus<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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spotted horsemint (Monarda punctat<\/em>a)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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American witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Native plants can look gorgeous in your landscape and support our pollinators and birds.

Image attributions (top left clockwise to bottom): Lesley Ingram, bugwood.com; John Ruter, University of Georgia, bugwood.com; John D. Byrd, Mississippi State University, bugwood.com; John Ruter, University of Georgia, bugwood.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Fall bloomer climbing aster<\/a> is from the daisy family of plants and has a lovely purple color. It is a vine, though, which will require some care to keep it in bounds unless you have a lot of space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For next year\u2019s bloom I\u2019ll be sure to put in some native golden groundsel<\/a>. The more we can do to help out our bees<\/a>, the better off we all will be. I love the look of native witch hazel<\/a>, but it wants a little more space than I\u2019ve got, so will have to wait ’til I find a home for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attracting pollinators is about more than pleasant smells from the porch swing or my house looking nice from the street. Our bees, butterflies, and birds spread pollen and provide food that sustains life right on up the chain. And pollination doesn\u2019t just benefit nature, in 2021 pollination had a 635 million dollar economic impact on Georgia<\/a>. As home gardeners, we have a lot of options to put in native pollinator friendly plants to maximize benefits to our bees, birds, and butterflies, make our yards look nice, and send us those lovely smells and chemical signals every time we walk out the door.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Jason Parker, Fulton County Master Gardener Extension Volunteer May is the heart of springtime, and the scent of flowers is in the air. Those scents, and the lovely colors that accompany them, are meant to attract attention. Our bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds are becoming active and beginning to play their annual role as pollinators. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,28,16,4,26,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annuals","category-conservation","category-native-plants","category-ornamental","category-perennials","category-pollinator"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/fultonag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/fultonag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/fultonag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/fultonag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/fultonag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1180"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/fultonag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1188,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/fultonag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180\/revisions\/1188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/fultonag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/fultonag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/fultonag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}