June 21, 2018
This year, Congress has designated National Pollinator Week as June 18 – 24, 2018.
According to the Pollinator Partnership, about 75% of all flowering plants rely on animal pollinators. Over 200,000 species of animals act as pollinators. Of those, about 1,000 are hummingbirds, bats, and small mammals. The rest are insects such as beetles, bees, ants, wasps, butterflies, and moths.
Pollination occurs when pollen grains are moved between two flowers of the same species, or within a single flower, by wind or animals that are pollinators.
We have joined the Million Pollinator Garden Challenge by registering the Bishop’s Garden as a place friendly to pollinators by planting pollinator-friendly flowers and by installing tubes with cocoons of Osmia ‘blue orchard’ bees in a number of trees around the Garden.
As you can see from these photos, the project seems to be a success. Our pollinators are hard at work!
