Editor’s note: This commentary is by Ron Krupp, who is the author of “The Woodchuck Returns to Gardening.” It originally aired on Vermont Public Radio.
[I] have noticed how there are fewer insects splattered on my windshield in summer and why I don’t hear as many songbirds. You can deal with some of these losses by growing pollinator plants in your home gardens.
In the United States, scientists found the population of monarch butterflies fell by 90% in the last 20 years; the rusty-patched bumblebee, which once lived in 28 states, dropped by 87% over the same period. It was last observed in Vermont in 1999. A German study found that the overall abundance of flying insects in German nature reserves decreased by 75% in just 27 years.
Ornithologists found that birds that rely on insects for food were in trouble: eight in 10 partridges gone from French farmlands. Half of all farmland birds in Europe disappeared in just three decades. At first, many scientists assumed the familiar culprit was habitat loss, but then they wondered if the birds might simply be starving.
The Green Mountains are not immune for what’s being called, the “insect apocalypse.” Margaret Skinner, the professor entomologist at the University of Vermont said we need to have long-term longitudinal insect studies on why losses are occurring and what can be done.
University of Vermont bee researchers are buzzing after an anonymous $500,000 gift to support threatened pollinators. The Apis Fund is named after the scientific name for honeybees. The gift support projects supporting vital bee pollinators. Bees are essential for the world’s food supply – including Vermont agriculture – but are experiencing steep declines from climate change, disease, pesticides, and habitat loss including meadows, forests and even weedy patches.
The gift was made to UVM’s Gund Institute for Environment, which has led internationally recognized research on bees and other pollinators, including the first map of U.S. bee declines, how bees improve crop yields, the effects of climate change on bees, projected losses in coffee-growing regions, and the extinction of four Vermont bumblebee species.
Native pollinator plants tend to grow vigorously without requiring much fussing. They generally take climatic extremes in stride. Most are major attractions for butterflies, birds, bees and other pollinators because they provide food and/or shelter for these beneficial garden visitors.
I’ve been an organic gardener for 35 years and for the past three years I’ve been growing pollinators at the Tommy Thompson Community Garden in the Intervale including New England asters, phlox, coneflowers and bee balm, an old-fashioned perennial that attracts pollinators Monarch butterflies. So why not grow a pollinator garden? Every little bit helps.
