Pollinator Week Coming This Month

If you are gardening in the summer in Florida, consider planting or not digging up flowering plants in your landscape in honor of National Pollinator Week, which is coming June 17-24.
Pollinators are important for everything from the maintenance of healthy wildflower populations to aiding commercial fruit and nut tree production.
Although many people do not think much beyond bees when they think of pollinators, the list is longer.
Florida pollinators include many other kinds of insects including moths, beetles and flies as well as hummingbirds.
In other parts of the world, mammals ranging from bats to lemurs perform pollination duties.
According to pollinator advocates, nearly 80 percent of all flowering plants required pollinators to spread seeds, set fruit and maintain healthy populations.
This issue is particularly important in the context of documented declines in insect populations worldwide as a result of factors that include pesticides and habitat loss.
If you have flowering plants–including some you might consider “weeds” on your property, consider letting them alone, so they can continue to provide pollen to sustain butterflies, moth and other creatures that depend on nectar as a major food source.
This should extend to roadsides , which are often migration paths for pollinators.
This is particularly true in rural areas, where homeowners sometimes heavily mow the roadsides in front of their homes when less aggressive management could result in a more attractive landscape and great wildlife observation opportunities.