Page 22 2025 Spring Home and Garden LINCOLN DAILY NEWS April 2025 Are pollinators welcome in your landscape? Growing concern for the destruction of plants and habitat that support the life cycle of pollinating insects has encouraged many gardeners to devote some, or all, of their yard and garden space to plants that benefit pollinators. Growing a pollinator garden can have many benefits beyond food for insects, and spring is the perfect time to start thinking about incorporating a pollinator garden into your garden or landscape. First of all, what are pollinators? Pollinators are insects or other carriers that transfer pollen from a male flower to a female flower of a plant to allow fertilization. Why should we care about pollinators? Horticulturalists at the University of Illinois Extension website address this question with an enlightening answer: “Imagine your dining table without the delectable fruits of apples, blueberries, cherries, peaches, or the versatile pumpkin or zucchini. Pollinators are also crucial, directly or indirectly, for the production of dyes, medicines, and fibers such as cotton. Pollinators also sustain plant communities by pollinating native plants that provide wildlife Support Your Local Pollinators: Grow a Pollinator Garden food, nesting, and shelter. Pollinators include butterflies, moths, beetles, hummingbirds, bats, flies and wasps. In North America, 99% of pollinators are insects, and most are bees. Unfortunately, pollinators are in dangerous decline. Yet gardeners can be a positive influence on pollinator populations and diversity if we all do our part to plant pollinator-friendly gardens.” https://extension. illinois.edu/cfiv/pollinator-pockets There are many good reasons to start a pollinator garden or replace current plants with native species. Joe Bauer, Education Specialist for the Illinois Department of Continued --
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