How To: Pollinator Garden
We enjoyed our 2024 pollinator garden so much that we're doing it again for 2025. The big patch of wildflowers was a great addition to our urban garden. While it didn’t produce food, it had a lot of other benefits:
The blooms drew a ton of pollinators for the rest of our garden. The insects were more interested in the blooms and the bee bath than us. We went all year with no stings, despite all the wasps, bees, and hornets we saw hanging around.
The dense garden also drew a lot of spiders, who acted as amazing natural mosquito control. So, hanging out on our patio was pleasant without employing a lot of anti-skeeter tactics.
The flowers also grew so tall that they blocked out our dreary view of our neighbor's yard :)
Our resident woodchuck, Chuck Finley, found plenty to eat in the pollinator garden, so he ignored our crops.
It was beautiful. Because they were mostly annuals, the garden bloomed for nearly four months straight. Stepping outside every morning was delightful—and we had altar bouquets all season without feeling like we were hurting the plants.
It was low maintenance (woot!). All the plants took care of themselves and dominated (almost) any weeds that tried to grow there.
If you'd like to start your own pollinator garden, we collected a ton of seeds from our 2024 flowers—and they're available to buy!
To start your seeds:
The best time to plant is late fall (for those seeds that need to freeze to germinate) or early spring. I generally forget in fall, so the flowers above were planted in early spring.
Clean your flowerbed of weeds.
Turn the top layer of dirt using a full-size rake or cultivating (hand) rake. Go about about 1- 1/2” deep.
Sprinkle your seeds. We used the “everything everywhere” method, but you can group your seeds by type in different areas.
Cover the seeds with the dirt and lightly tamp down. Don’t over-compress the dirt or it will inhibit seed growth. Just tamp the dirt down enough that birds won’t be able to easily see the seeds.
Water lightly daily until they sprout. Don’t overwater initially or you could suffocate the seeds. Do, however, keep them moist until they sprout.
Weed as necessary and enjoy watching them grow!
And be sure to get yourself a garden guardian or two—cats love the tall flowers a the shade helps keep kitties cool when it gets crazy-hot outside. (Pictured above—Fanny at the fence, Rusty in the weeds.)
