Lawns and gardens are a staple of homes in Calgary. Lots of beautiful flowers grow here throughout the year. It is the wish of every homeowner to have the best lawn or garden that is teeming with colourful blooms. However, maintaining a lawn can be a tiring process so working with a Calgary-based landscape contractor is a great start. You will have to dedicate a lot of your time tending to the different species of flowers and plants you have planted in your lawn. Add the manicuring of the lawn to the list and it becomes a burdening task that is impossible for anyone to manage, especially if they have a job. So, what should you do? Leave the garden to ruin? Certainly not! The answer to your garden troubles is bees.
How Can Bees Help Calgary Gardeners?
Mother Nature has been taking care of plant life and flowers long before humans came into existence. It has a system in place already that ensures the growth and survival of plant species during different seasons. For millennia, bees have been the nature’s workforce that has been tasked with the duty of cross-pollinating the flowers. The City of Calgary’s page Backyard Gardening Pollinators states that these tiny little insects are able to reach the anthers of the flowers and release the pollen like no other insect can. Even the famed honey bees have difficulty doing it. Letting the bees take control of your garden will give it a new lease of life. You will see all kinds of flowers and blooms cropping up and won’t have to spend hours in the lawn trying to make them grow.
How Calgary Landscapers can help Bring Bees to Your Garden
Well, the first order of business is to ensure that the bees have a place to live. Constantly mowing the lawn deprives the bees of a home. So, the first thing you should do is to not be that concerned about a heavily manicured lawn. Let the grass grow and the bees will have a place to call home. According to Friends of the Earth, Canada is home to more than 800 species of bees. Give them a home and they won’t stray far from your garden. Once the bees settle in, they will get to work immediately and you will soon see their work paying off. There might be some weeds growing amongst the flowers and the lawn might appear a bit messy but it will be teeming with life. Even if you have to do a bit of manicuring, make sure that you do it ever so lightly so that it doesn’t disturb the bee population.
Keeping the Bees Safe
It’s one thing letting the bees in your garden but if you don’t keep them safe then there won’t be any point to this. Bee populations have gone down all over the world and the same trend is being seen in Calgary too. You won’t see the swarm of bees hovering from plant to plant in gardens anymore. The primary reason for this has been the excessive use of pesticides on the crops and plants (see our post on eco-friendly landscaping). In your effort to keep the plants safe, you cause harm to the bees and other pollinators that are needed for the pollination process to work. The harmful chemicals in the pesticides are toxic to bees and can cause them to flee your garden for good. So, if you want these garden helpers to stay, you need to avoid spraying your blooms and greens with pesticides.
How to Make the Bees Stay
Aside from keeping the bees safe, you also have to make the garden welcoming for the bees too. Wikipedia notes that bees feed on nectar and pollen from flowers. So, you should have flowers that contain nectar in your lawn or garden. Unfortunately, the hybrid flowers found in markets are all for show and are mostly sterile. They don’t contain nectar and are thus, not conducive for bee populations to grow. You will have to look for flowers that bloom throughout the year or try to mix and match seasonal flowers in such a way that there are always flowers available for the bees.
Planting Native Flowers Might Help
Just like humans, bees are also creatures of habit. They have predictable patterns that can be exploited. For instance, bees visit those flowers more frequently that are native to the area where the bees are found. So, in our case, this means Calgary. If you plant flowers that are native to Calgary, the bees will come in flocks to your garden. There is a wide range of native wild flowers that you can choose from depending on the season. It is best to get yourself educated about the different types of flowers that Calgary has to offer before going to the shop to purchase them. CBC News maintains that many varieties of perennials can flourish in the Calgary weather like Blue Flax, Old Man’s Whiskers, Prairie Smoke, and Showy Milkweed. We wrote a great article on flowers that grow in Calgary.
Add Shallow Water Channels
The dry weather of Calgary means that there isn’t moisture in the air for the bees and other pollinators. To sort this issue out, you need to introduce a source of water into your lawn or garden. Now, standing water can create issues like mosquitoes so that is not a viable solution. Adding shallow water channels can work. You will have to find a way to keep the water flowing, though. An alternative to this is having a birdbath. The birdbath will offer the bees the ideal place to drink. You can ensure the smaller bees don’t drown by adding a few pebbles into the dishes. Since the stagnant water inside the dishes of the birdbath can also invite mosquitoes, you will have to empty and refill the dishes frequently.
Conclusion
So, if you want a bee-friendly lawn or garden, you will have to make certain changes to it. You will have to let go of some weeds here and there and let nature take its course. Also, you will have to plant native flowers that can attract the bees and provide them the nectar they are after. Keeping in mind the dry weather of Calgary, you should have birdbaths installed in your garden for the bees to drink water. Furthermore, to keep the bee population safe, you will have to refrain from spraying pesticides on flowers.
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