DIGGING IT
order. Now! The people in charge have spoken. Fix this bad and ugly. How does that happen? From grand intentions to a
court appearance? It starts with a failure in the basics of bed preparation. These need to be well researched or the plan is doomed from the start. Killing the plants already there, then the seeds that are neatly buried from last year, then the seeds that are buried there from a lifetime of seasons beneath the undisturbed dirt. All these sources of undesired seeds need to be dealt with. Then, what gets planted is next. If you go looking, you
Some are selected by ‘experts’ to grow in YOUR area, with pollinators in “your” state with excellent germination? May- be. Sometimes. Basic horticulture is next. Fertilizer, water, more water, and some more water. Depending on the planting, mulch maybe, and more than an occasional search for those weeds that didn’t get caught earlier. Grasses are common, but an- nual weeds that blow in love your new plot, and take off. It’s easy growing in a bed with all that fertilizer and water. Some gardeners don’t really like to think of this. Like nat-
ural beekeepers, if it doesn’t grow with no attention from the keeper, then it shouldn’t grow at all. It’s a sink or swim world, lead to really bad and ugly. The results, of course are as diverse as the kinds of plants
- tion they got in the beginning. And like most things in life, it’s a bell curve of results - from perfect to terrible and mostly somewhere between. Let’s start with the worst that can happen. Nothing. The
seeds don’t germinate because… Well, why? The seeds? Planted too deep or not deep enough? No water? Eaten by birds and bugs? Basically, the seed mix wasn’t good, or the gardener wasn’t good. Either way nothing but weeds show up by mid-summer, and the plot looks like weeds the rest of the season. Bad. Or, the annuals in the mix start, but the perennials never
at fault? The gardener or the seeds? By the near end of the season, that meant-to-be bene-
- thing scruffy like that poorly maintained factory on the edge of town. And you can bet the neighbors don’t really want to have to deal with this, not in my back yard. And that’s when the Neighborhood Zealots suddenly appear. Their rallying cry: Get rid of the ugly. Our would be pollinator gardener may not be lost. At- tention from the other spectrum can happen when the local They tell the story of how a concerned citizen is doing his best to save the bees. That’s the voice over while the camera
Kim Flottum is the retiring Editor of Bee Culture maga- zine, author of several bee- keeping books including The Backyard Beekeeper, Better Bee Keeping, and In Business with Bees, covering basic be- ginner to running a beekeep- ing business. He is associated with several pollinator groups that have to deal with this problem on many levels.
31
The Ugly
is a good thing, right? And would you believe, there are neighbors who don’t
- hood to go back to neat. Nice, clean and ordered. Of course, beekeepers, greenies, nature lovers, citizen sci-
entists, gardeners, and all the rest of us get wind of this story: good guy plants pollinator garden, gets rousted by ignorant neighbors and an uncaring government. The fact that the garden looks – Great, Average, or Terrible – isn’t mentioned or noticed. Until one of the now incensed and angry neigh- bors or one of the government people that was attacked calls up that TV shot, and, minus the voice over, points out that the pollinator plot really does look like that abandoned fac- lawns.
Here’s the Short Lesson from this Story Planting for pollinators is good. Planning for pollinators
is necessary. Do your zoning and horticulture homework and that’s bad. And you’ll have both a mess to clean up and ugly neighbors to appease.
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