Even small gardens can make a difference

If you have a small patch of yard and sunlight, you can join the fight to help bees and pollinators survive.

"Every little bit we can do, in each yard, will help," said Dan Kunkle, director of the Lehigh Gap Nature Center. "Home gardens are hugely important, or at least they could be. We have taken away so much natural habitat, but if we can replace some of it in our yards, it will add up."

He noted that there are approximately 40 million acres of lawn in America. That's four times the amount of acreage dedicated to growing corn, and more than the land used to grow corn, wheat and fruit trees combined.

Dedicating just a small portion of lawns to pollinators could make a huge difference.

If you haven't already made plans for a pollinator-friendly garden, this Saturday's open house at five local certified pollinator gardens is a good place to start.

"There are probably people who are interested in this topic, but don't know where to start," said Kunkle. "This is a good chance to get out and see what other people have learned as they started. We're all learning from each other."

"You can see what plants do well in the area just by walking through our garden," added Kathie Romano, a garden manager at the Lehigh Gap Nature Center.

She has been working to keep this year's garden well-labeled for easy plant identification by visitors.

Kunkle and Romano noted that it's important to have a large enough variety of plants that pollinators are well-fed throughout the growing season. Romano aims to have at least three types of plants blooming at any given time, preferably in clumps to allow easy foraging by pollinators.

"We want you to come to our event on Saturday, but we also want you to come back and see how our garden changes with the season," she said.

It's also important, although perhaps not a natural reflex, to let plants fulfill their role in the food chain.

Flowers aren't the only source of food in a garden; leaves also play a role. Some plants will have holes in their leaves as they are eaten by young pollinators and beneficial bugs that attract birds.

Gypsy moths and non-native species are one thing but spraying plants with herbicides at the first sight of chewing can harm beneficial bugs and pollinators.