Remi Poliquin
Counsel
Leave the Leaves!
submitted by Patricia Aldred, CAPDA
The Beechwood pollinator garden, established by the Graduating Class of 2023, continues to do some important work even though autumn has settled in and its flowers have faded.
Throughout the growing season, the garden offered a succession of blooms for pollinators. Summer brought borage, violets and milkweed flowers. In late summer, echinacea and rudbeckia came into bloom, followed by goldenrod and asters in early autumn. This succession of flowers meant that the garden continually provided nectar and pollen for many months.
Now, the plants are moving into the next stage of their seasonal life cycle: making and dispersing seeds. Birds will feast on the seeds of echinacea and rudbeckia. Milkweed seed pods will dry, split open and release their silky seeds to the wind, carrying them to new places where they may take root next year.
The garden’s work doesn’t end when the flowers are gone. The fallen leaves and dry, hollow stems provide shelter and nesting sites for insects as they overwinter. Some native bees spend the winter in hollow stems or underground, while other insects use leaf litter as shelter.
The Beechwood pollinator garden was planted to support pollinators and other wildlife throughout the seasons, and it is doing just that. As we look ahead and the garden settles in for winter, seeds are spreading, insects are finding shelter, and we can look forward to the cycle beginning again next spring.
