Make sure to thank the bees, butterflies, moths, and other animals that do their best to keep your flowers blooming in your sensory garden.
If your sensory garden design has an emphasis on sight, smell, or sound, then you are going to want to keep your pollinator friends coming to your garden. Flowers and pollinators have developed a win-win relationship together and you don’t want to interfere with that.
Your garden is colorful and smells sweet for a reason
Colors are, at least initially, the most important draw for pollinators. Keep the flowers blooming and bright and you will probably have a steady stream of visitors. However, research suggests that the “best” smelling flowers are the ones that get the most attention when they are near, so both color and fragrance are important to attracting pollinators.
Pollinators need food – and lots of it!
Pollinators, such as butterflies and bees, rely on the protein in pollen and the sugars in nectar. It takes a lot of energy to live their lifestyles, so they must eat a lot. The flowers need them to visit often as well. It generally takes about fifteen visits from a pollinator before the flower is fully fertilized.
Let’s give a cheer to the often forgotten pollinators
Butterflies and bees aren’t enough to pollinate every plant, however. At night your flowers may be visited by moths or bats. You may also have flies and beetles to do their part to make sure your flowers get fertilized.
Bees and flowers are a package deal
You can’t have flowers without these pollinators. A sight garden is probably going to be a sound garden as the sound of bees and other organisms surround you as you walk amongst the sweet lavender, rose of Sharon, or other show-stoppers of the garden.
If you sneeze a lot, pollinators are your best friend
If you suffer from seasonal allergies, a sensory garden full of flowering plants is the way to go. As a general rule, flowers don’t make you sneeze because they don’t need to throw pollen into the air. Instead, they rely on the bees, butterflies, moths, and others to make it happen. Make sure the next time you see a bee doing its job, thank her for what she does to make your sensory garden experience a wonderful one.
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