Pollinators

By Trevor Greenway

Action Chelsea for the Respect of the Environment (ACRE) in partnership with the Canadian Wildlife Federation, is turning the Hundred Acre Wood in Wakefield into a year-round pollinator field to help insects thrive in the Hills. We’ve all heard about how important pollinating insects are to our lifecycle but don’t most hibernate in the winter? Why do we need to provide food for them year-round?

Hibernating pollinators need hearty spring breakfast

If you ask Canadian Wildlife Federation project coordinator and terrestrial conservation officer Maxime MacKinnon, he’ll tell you that despite the fact that bees, hoverflies and butterflies hibernate over winter, some stick around during colder months before heading south, including hummingbirds and other fowls. He says it’s important to plant winter pollinating flowers like goldenrods and wild lupins, so that when spring does come, the Hundred Acre Wood will be the site of a feast for early pollinators. 

“Some of them migrate, it depends,” says MacKinnon, who was the project lead on ACRE’s pollinator field. “And we want to provide nectarine flowers for species all year round. So they’re maybe not present, but they are here. Native wildflowers don’t bloom over the winter. We select a diverse mix of native species that bloom from spring through fall to support pollinators that hibernate and migrate throughout their active seasons.”

Elm, butternut trees not enough

ACRE president Stephen Woodley said his organization, which is a non-profit and made up of concerned citizens of the environment, planted 60 disease-resistant butternut trees as well as scores of elms last year at the Hundred ACRE Wood in Wakefield. “But it’s not enough to make it a good pollinator meadow because you have to provide food for the native pollinators throughout the year.”

Putting roofs over insects’ heads

Pollinator meadows do much more than just provide food for insects like native bees, beetles, hoverflies and butterflies – they offer “shelter, ground nesting and overwintering sites for hibernation,” explains MacKinnon. “Beyond providing nectar and pollen, native meadow habitat supports over 42 species at-risk in Western Quebec.”

Beetle, beetle, everywhere a beetle

Did you know that one in every four identified animal species is a beetle? Beetles are an extremely diverse group, with over 400,000 species known worldwide. They play many important roles in the ecosystem, from aiding with decomposition to reducing pest populations and pollinating plants.

A butterfly’s incubator

Did you know that milkweed is the only plant that a Monarch butterfly will lay its eggs on? Milkweed is considered the host plant for Monarchs. Caterpillars rely on milkweed as a food source, and they can’t develop into butterflies without this integral flower. “Since this is a migratory species, nectaring plants from spring to fall are crucial for the butterflies to feed from and [get] fuel for their travel back to Mexico,” says MacKinnon. 

Hoary and hairy: Do you know these 21 plant varieties?

ACRE, in partnership with the Canadian Wildlife Federation, planted 685 wildflower plugs at the Hundred Acre Wood including these 21 varieties: 

• Common milkweed
• Swamp milkweed
• Upland white goldenrod
• Grass-leaved goldenrod
• Grey goldenrod
• Lanced-leaved coreopsis
• Tall meadow rue
• Wild bergamot
• Black-eyed Susan
• Obedient plant
• Prairie smoke
• Foxglove beardtongue
• Hairy beardtongue
• Sneezeweed
• Frost aster
• Virginia mountain mint
• Wild lupin
• Closed bottle gentian
• Frostweed
• Hoary vervain
• Panicled aster

Plants that love to ‘chillout”

Some native plants, like sneezeweed, need to go through a cold stratification, a process of exposing seeds to cold and moist conditions to break the seed’s dormancy and increase its ability to germinate in spring. That’s why ACRE volunteers, were planting flowers like Black-eyed Susans, goldenrods and Joe Pye weed (No, not former Wakefielder Geoffrey Pye of Yellow Jacket Avenger – but yellowjackets are pollinators, even though they are also predators.)

Olympian plants when not paddling

Chelsea Olympic paddler Sofia Jensen may have a summer full of intense competition lined up, but she still has time to volunteer for community organizations like ACRE. She, along with her father, Olaf, were among the dozen or so planters who helped turn this former farmer’s field into a pollinator meadow.