Sowing Seeds for Pollinators
Our pollinators- the bees, butterflies, moths, and other insects around us- need food and shelter all year round. Growing plants from seed can really help them and they can really help the plants too. Pollination is after all the way that plants share pollen and produce more seeds, and fruit.
Sowing seeds is simple, easy and it’s magical when your plants start to grow. Just follow a few simple rules:
- Organic is best
Some seeds have a coating or dressing that contains pesticides. Organic seeds are free from these nasties. Check the packet.
- Avoid hybrids
Some seeds come from F1 hybrids which are highly bred for certain characteristics. These crosses sometimes lose their ability to produce nectar and pollen in favour of colour e.g. petunias and pelargoniums.
- Make it easy on yourself
Some plants need long periods of frost or heat to germinate, they are fun to try, but can require extra patience and special conditions, check the packets.
- Choose seeds grown in the UK
Seeds from other parts of the world can be contaminated with invasive plants and are best avoided.
- Best of all -Collect your own
Easy to do and you know they’re good.
Which plants should I grow?
Many seed packets these days have a pollinator logo on them showing that they are good producers of pollen or nectar and will be visited by insects.
There are hundreds of different types and the garden mixes for pollinators can be very good too. If you want to see a list of the best plants for pollinators, go to this study from our friend Rosy Bee, https://www.rosybee.com/research-study. She can’t deliver to Guernsey, but you can find seeds for many of these plants locally. All of them produce nectar the stick substance that pollinators need for energy or pollen which is high in proteins, and they sometimes feed to their young.
Try and have a variety of plants that flower at different times of the year. Queen bumblebees come out very early in the year and will visit some wallflowers, and candytufts that can be grown from seed. Both bumblebees and butterflies are active right through until October, or even later in sheltered places. They still need to feed, and you will still want to see flowers in the garden. So, try sowing at different times of the year or grow plants like Michaelmas daisies for autumn flowering or hellebores and lungwort for early spring.
Don’t limit yourself to flowers either, herbs and vegetables can be really popular with pollinators and provide food for you too. Peas, beans, tomatoes, courgettes and squashes are all visited by pollinators as are a lot of the herbs we use in cooking including thyme, chives, rosemary, sage, and even coriander. These herbs are all easy to grow from seed and will last for years, either by reseeding or producing long-lasting perennial plants.
Are all flowers good?
They might all look good, but some have been bred to produce double flowers or have lost their ability to produce pollen or nectar completely, so look for that pollinator friendly logo on the seed packet. Some quite exotic plants are good as pollinators with long tongues can get to the nectar, and even those that flower at night and produce an evening scent will attract moths.
It’s not just about the flowers!
Our pollinators need food, shelter and somewhere to lay their eggs and plants are part of all of that. When plants are growing, their leaves are eaten by all sorts of insects. We’ve probably all seen caterpillars eating nasturtiums, cabbage plants or nettles. No caterpillars means no butterflies. Or perhaps you’ve seen a perfect circle or oval shape cut out of rose bushes- it’s the leaf-cutter bee looking to line their nests. They don’t do much harm and are just a fascinating part of the lifecycle of pollinators.
If you want to go further then leave any old apples from your trees to rot down, those fermenting juices are a favourite of red admirals on the wing in the autumn. And many mining bees look for the old stems of plants like Echinops and even Alexanders to lay their eggs in. Shelter is just as important as food.
How do I sow my seeds?
Most packets will give you instructions on when and where to sow your seeds. Some you can sow in the autumn and others suggest you wait until the spring or for the soil to warm up a bit, and then you can get going.
Find the spot where you want the plants to grow, and remove any grass, or thick vegetation. Seeds need to be in contact with the soil to germinate. Their roots grow first and anchor the seedlings in place and allow them to find water and nutrients. So, if you can rake over the ground to make a fine tilth, you’ll be giving them the best start to life.
Then simply scatter the seeds on the surface of the soil following any instructions on the packet. Then firm the ground with your hands or walk over the top. That will stop the seeds blowing away and make it more difficult for birds to find them and eat them.
If it’s not going to rain in the next 24 hours, then give them a drink from a watering can with a fine rose. Keep the surface moist and make sure that the surface doesn’t dry out completely.
And that’s it, you’ve started the process of germination. You need to be patient as some seeds can take a few weeks to get going, but most will start to show within a couple of weeks. Give them a drink from time to time and you might need to thin them out as they grow if they look overcrowded. Fewer seedlings will give you stronger plants.
If you want to see more, Laura Harrison shows you how here https://bit.ly/4ka0GQv
Are wildflowers best for pollinators?
However many seeds we sow in the garden, wildflowers provide the majority of the food for pollinators. We’ve all seen bumblebees on the thrift growing around the coast or on Campions, Alexanders, or Dandelions, but some don’t fly very far and there’s no doubt that some gardens are like an oasis. They often have exotic plants that flower early or late in the season, which is very helpful.
It’s important though that we keep garden seeds in the garden. If you want to use wildflower mixes outside your garden, contact us, and we can give you specific advice. Some mixes contain plants not found in Guernsey even if they are quite common in the UK. You might be wasting your money, as some will not thrive here.
How do I collect my own?
Some plants such as foxgloves, marigolds, thyme, and verbena will drop their seeds on the soil around them when they finish flowering and new seedlings will grow naturally in the soil. But you can also collect the seeds yourself. Wait until the flowers finish and the plant is drying out at the end of the summer, then look for the seed heads starting to form. Just give them a gentle shake into an envelope. Some of the seed might be very small, and you might get thousands of seeds from one plant like foxgloves or they might be quite large, and you can pick them by hand like honesty.
If you have extra seeds, then take them to a seed bank or exchange them. You can find this one in the Clifton Room at the Guille-Allès library in town. You can take what you need from there for free as well. You can drop off your seeds in the collection box in reception and in some HSBC branches locally as well.
Good luck and enjoy!