Sudbury group encouraging people to grow pollinator plants

A community garden group in Sudbury is creating some buzz around a project to provide food and shelter to butterflies, birds, and bees.

The Sudbury Community Garden Network is encouraging people to grow a pollinator garden, which has plant species that are conducive to the growth and the nurturing of pollinator species. The list of plants includes purple cone flower, echinacea, bee balm, boneset, milkweed, bushes, trees, and herbs.

"People may be familiar with milkweed and how it fits into the health of the monarch butterflies," said Rachelle Niemela, acting chair of Sudbury's Community Garden Network.

"The monarch butterflies right now are severely stressed. There's was a report last year that there's 53 per cent loss of overwintering monarchs. So it's a devastating loss for a species that's already suffered a 90 per cent decline in its numbers."

She says researchers are predicting that there may be a collapse of the monarch migration, which spans from northern Ontario to Mexico.

"They only lay their eggs for larva on milkweed," Nemela said, adding the plant has been "decimated" across the U.S. and Canada for a number of reasons, including pollution and chemical destruction.

"So there's a real risk that we may see the last of monarchs in our lifetime. That's why we need to raise awareness and get people to start thinking about using plants that are friendly to pollinators, planting native species in particular, that will feed native pollinators a lot better than species that we have been putting in our gardens that come from Asia originally."

A pollinator garden doesn't have to be a messy affair, she notes.

"Pollinator gardens can be very formal looking. They can look like a bunch of wildflowers in a little corner. You can plant plants that fit your colour scheme," Niemela said.

"There is a wide range of plants that that you can pick. The biggest challenge right now is availability because gardening is popular right now. Plants are going out of the nurseries as fast as they can get them [in]."

Other elements of a pollinator garden can include a little bit of water, to help keep pollinators hydrated.

"You can put in some artistic-looking logs that will allow those species that burrow in the earth and use logs for overwintering," she said.

Niemela says our food security depends on pollinators.

"Our agricultural practices that we're doing right now are not the greatest for sustainability, so we have to start small. And even if it's just planting two or three plants, that starts the whole process of encouraging pollinators."

For more information, visit their website.