Why are pollinators so important and what can you do to help them thrive in our village? Project lead for Coton Loves Pollinators, Sharon Cairns, tells all…

In 2020, when lockdown confined us all to our homes and our food supplies become more restricted, we reflected on just how indebted we are to our small pollinator friends. Along with other residents of Cambridgeshire village, Coton, I set up a project called Coton Loves Pollinators that aims to work with the community and local landowners to create a more biodiverse environment that will attract pollinators and enhance the landscape for both people and wildlife.

Why do pollinators matter?

Pollinators – such as butterflies and moths, all types of bees, hoverflies, flies and wasps – are an essential part of our ecosystem. Not only are they an important element in the food chain for birds, bats and other insectivores, they also pollinate the majority of the world’s flowering and fruiting plants. For example, did you know that for a strawberry flower to turn into a strawberry it needs to be visited five times by a bumblebee or 15 times by a honeybee? That’s just for one strawberry!

It’s estimated that one in three mouthfuls of food we eat depends on pollinators, including apples and pears, carrots, olives, broccoli, avocados, chocolate, grapes and almonds. Pollinators also contribute to the production of natural fibres such as cotton, timber, and biofuels like palm oil and oil seed rape.

So what’s the problem with pollinators?

Nesting sites and habitats for pollinators are disappearing dramatically and insect populations are plummeting, due to loss and fragmentation of habitat, widespread pesticide use, diseases and climate change.

The loss of habitat though urbanisation has caused a reduction in food, nesting and other resources for pollinators. Intensive agriculture, large field sizes and monoculture farming, as well as intensive grazing have also led to significant loss of non-cultivated land for pollinators, such as wildflower meadows. The Butterfly Conservation Trust states that more than 97 percent of our wildflower meadows have been eradicated since World War II.

But the good news is that research has shown that cities and semi-urban areas, such as Histon & Impington, are largely free from pesticides and offer a surprisingly diverse range of nesting sites; plants for young larvae; and trees, flowers and shrubs providing nectar and pollen for adult pollinators throughout the year. Gardens, churchyards, allotments and roadside verges are particularly beneficial habitats.

5 Simple Steps to help pollinators

We hope our project will demonstrate how a whole community can come together to enhance biodiversity on its doorstep and that Histon & Impington might be inspired to do the same. With that in mind, while you’re at home with (hopefully) time to enjoy your garden, here are a few steps you can take now to improve life for our essential pollinators.

Plant pollinator-friendly plants

Grow things that offer food for pollinators all year round in your garden. It’s possible to have something flowering in every month of the year. Look for the RHS’s ‘Plants for Pollinators’ logo when buying plants or check which plants at garden centres are being visited by insects. Friends of the Earth has a great section on bee-friendly plants too.

Avoid double flowers

Beautiful and tempting as they are, it’s best to avoid double-flowered hybrids in your garden as BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine points out: ‘Most double flowers are of little use, as they have so many petals the bees can’t get to the central part of the flower, where the nectar and pollen are found. Roses and dahlias are often bred to have double flowers, but there are plenty of beautiful single-flowered varieties to grow, instead.’ Try to prolong the flowering season by deadheading regularly too, where appropriate.

Let your garden grow wild

Leave areas that you don’t disturb too often to provide habitats for pollinators. Embrace small patches of dock and thistles and leave patches of nettles for the larvae of beautiful butterflies, such Red Admiral, Peacock, Comma and Small Tortoiseshell to eat. Consider planting cabbage, broccoli or kale in a flower border for the Common White butterfly to lay its eggs on and to provide food for its caterpillars, leaving the rest of your brassicas safely under netting in a veg patch.

Challenge your ‘Wimbledon Lawn’ mind set

One of the most beneficial things you can do is to designate a small No Mow strip in your garden. Leave it at least 3ins high so dandelions, daisies, clover and many other so-called ‘weeds’, which are so important for pollinators, can grow. Your No Mow strip only needs to be cut twice a year; once in spring and once in the autumn once all the flowers have bloomed. The clippings should be removed to prevent a mulch and reduce soil fertility. It is the reduced soil fertility which allows wildflowers to grow and prevents them being crowded out by dominant grass species. Trevor Dines, Plantlife Botanical Specialist says: ‘Did you know that just eight dandelion flowers can provide enough nectar for 15,000 bee visits per day?’ That’s worth putting your feet up for instead of mowing the lawn, surely?

Create special pollinator habitats and shelter

Consider making a solitary bee bank by leaving a south-facing area of bare earth for bees to burrow into, putting up insect hotels on south-facing walls or creating giant insect hotels if you have more space. Leave dead wood to rot in a corner of the garden or create log piles to offer shelter to a host of insects. Micro-ponds will attract a host of insects and leaving large stones in sunny borders allows butterflies to bask. Don’t clear up fallen leaves, old stems and other plant debris as these help moths and their caterpillars hide from predators and provide places for them to spend the winter. Leave cutting back old plants until spring, rather than doing it in autumn.

Share what you know

Tell friends and neighbours what you’re doing to help pollinators, talk to our parish council or local Sustainability group about organising more sympathetic grass mowing regimes. Consider lobbying the city council to introduce a local pollinator plan too. Pollinators need our help and together we can all make a difference.