Pollinators

Our Pollinator Garden

Why are pollinators important?

Pollinators are crucial to the health of crops, allowing them to produce successfully. Many wild animals rely on pollinators for food and shelter making them essential to habitats and ecosystems. There is a correlation between the biodiversity of pollinators and the plant biodiversity of an ecosystem, meaning that pollinators support biodiversity.

Some other interesting facts:

Pollinators can be indicators of the overall health of an ecosystem
Some plants are 90% dependent on pollinators. Some of these plants include blueberries and cherries
To make one pint of honey, honey bees visit 5 million flowers.
Bees cover a distance equal to 13 trips to the moon and back to produce 150 pounds of honey.
90 percent of the nation's apple crop is pollinated by bees.

Pennsylvania Pollinators

There are many types of bees that are native to Pennsylvania. Certain bees are more suited and adapted to specific plants, making them efficient for pollinating certain crops. Because of the specific needs of plants, it is important that we maintain the native variety of bees.

Honey Bees

Blue orchard mason bees

Japanese orchard bee

Bumble bees

Squash bees

The Best Native Plants for Pollinators

With large compound inflorescences, the complete flower head of a plant including stems, stalks, bracts, and flowers, of tiny flowers, these are the most attractive flowers to wide varieties of pollinators.

Solidago rigida – stiff goldenrod

Pycnanthemum muticum – clustered mountain mint

Upatorium perfoliatum – boneset

Euthrochium dubium – coastal plain Joe Pye

Asclepias incarnata – swamp milkweed

Our Garden

As we began our journey into creating a more sustainable campus and environmental learning center, the creation of habitats and supports for native species became a focus. Pollinator gardens were the easiest to begin work on.

PVHS's environmental club, Take Action, jumped on to help get the pollinator garden started. Removing the grass from the area and clearing down to the soil.