What's Blooming: Friendship Growing Garden

Honeybee enjoys the flower of a spearmint plant in the Friendship Growing Garden

What’s Blooming: Friendship Growing Garden
by Jessica Clarke, Horticulturist, Gardens on Spring Creek

If you have wandered through the Children’s Garden and made your way into the Friendship Growing Garden, you may have noticed that there are still flowers in our food beds. Most of the blooms are growing on perennial herbs such as Mentha spicata (spearmint), Mentha x piperita (chocolate mint), and annuals, like Tropaeolum (nasturtium) and varieties of marigolds such as Tagetes erecta (Mexican marigold). The purpose for leaving the flowers on the plants is to provide highly necessary food sources to sustain our pollinators into winter.

Many pollinators, such as bees, butterflies and others, need nectar and pollen as a food reserve for the winter months. For example, the original queens of a bumblebee hive will die off, and new queens will emerge late summer / fall. In order for the new queens to survive until spring, they will need food reserves for the winter as they borrow in the ground or prepare to hibernate in piles of leaves. The rest of the bumblebees will die off as it gets colder. Honeybees on the other hand, are busy preparing the hive for the long winter months ahead and will need to store as much nectar as possible in order to feed the hive. Many beekeepers will actually start feeding their colonies in the fall to maximize their chances of survival through the winter.

While honeybees are prepping for winter, a specific butterfly is getting ready to migrate. Monarch butterflies cannot overwinter in a cold climate and must migrate. They travel as far as the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico (if on the Eastern portion of the Rocky Mountains) or San Diego (if on the Western half of the United States). To successfully complete their long journey, they need to gain the full benefit of as many food reserves as possible. Some butterflies will travel as far as one hundred miles per day. Providing sustenance for their extensive journey in the fall plays a crucial role in this species’ survival.

A marine blue butterfly nectaring on a goldenrod plant

What can you do to help? Planting herbs and annuals that flower throughout the summer and late fall can help pollinators build a reserve, whether it is for their hive, hibernation or migration. In addition to herb garden favorites, adding native or naturalized plants like Solidago ‘Witchita Mountains’ (goldenrod) and Symphyotrichum oblongifolium (aromatic aster) that bloom in the fall, are beneficial to pollinators late in the season.

There are many beautiful autumn blooming plants to choose from, and they have the double benefit of both supporting pollinators while expanding your gardening season.

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