Dearest humans: We, the winged six-leggeds who tirelessly pollinate your crops and flowering plants of forest and field, have an urgent message for you. Our numbers are declining precipitously.
Winged two-leggeds whose songs delight you are also disappearing, for every year there are fewer of us to sustain them and feed their young. Terrestrial life itself is doomed without us. We have a shared destiny.
Please be aware that your ignorance and unwise actions are imperiling us all. You are fouling the air, sickening us and making it harder to find our scented flowers; changing the weather, causing fires, floods, and droughts; altering the seasons, making flowers bloom too soon for us to visit them; shining bright night lights that confuse many beings and are lethal to moths; bringing unruly plants from distant lands that proliferate uncontrolably, crowding out those that we need to live; and claiming our land with your farms, buildings, parking lots, and pristine lawns. Wild places are harder and harder to find, so there are fewer and fewer flowers and leaves to feed us and our larvae.
Surely you know that plants grow their flowers for our benefit, not yours. Their alluring colors and scents draw us to them, and their generous stores of pollen and nectar nourish us and our young. In return, we deliver their pollen to other plants of their kind, thus ensuring their diversity and resilience. Flowers also nourish your souls, and we are happy for you to enjoy them; but we beseech you to welcome and learn to love the native plants that have thrived here in our homeland for ages and are best suited to our needs.
Perhaps you believe that it is honeybees that most need your help, but they don’t really belong here. You brought them to our shores many generations ago for their honey and their wax. Their populations are growing, even though they are herd animals and are vulnerable to diseases which they pass to us. They take more than their share of nectar and they forage on most kinds of flowers, while many of us depend on one or a few plant species. We are much more efficient than they in pollinating the flowers of your crops, your fruit trees, and our beloved native plants. We are the ones who need and deserve your attention.
Please know, honor, and provide for us. Reestablish the vegetation of our ancestral homeland; eliminate or control pestilential invasive plants; grow many kinds of native flowering trees, shrubs, and vines for their floral and foliar abundance to feed us and our larvae; plant large clusters of wildflowers whose blossoms have a variety of colors and shapes and bloom from early spring through early fall; resist the temptation to establish exotic ornamentals and consider replacing them with native plants that are unaltered by plant breeders.
Instead of spraying your yards with lethal toxins, grow our beloved mountain mint whose leaves repel bothersome winged six-leggeds when rubbed onto your skin or made into a spray; offer us drinking water in shallow basins with stones for perching; refrain from using plant-killing poisons on your lawns so that small flowering plants can grow there; mow no more than twice a month to allow these plants to bloom; leave leaves under trees in the fall to provide us with cover through the winter; allow dead flower stalks that harbor us to remain standing well into spring.
There are many wise ones among you who are eager to help you create your own pollinator paradise. Several nurseries offer excellent selections of native plants and expert advice. The Soil Testing Laboratory at UMass Amherst can identify any nutrient deficiencies in your soil that need amending; landscapers who specialize in pollinator habitat can help you establish vegetation that will welcome us and appeal to humans of all ages. The wondrous worldwide web (we highly recommend Ecological Landscaping Association, Massachusetts Pollinator Network, Native Plant Trust, Pollinator Pathways, Tufts Pollinator Initiative, and Xerces Society for Invertebrates) has many videos and much useful information to inspire and guide you. Also, like and follow Pollinate Amherst on Facebook and contact them if you would like to either help create and maintain pollinator plantings on public land or spread the word about the importance and rewards of creating pollinator habitat.
Landscaping and gardening for pollinators will connect you with nature, enrich your lives, and heal your spirits. Share our beloved native plants and their seeds with other humans, and share your knowledge and passion as well so that they can follow in your footsteps. If you do your part, we will keep doing what we do best.
Thank you for heeding us, your devoted six-legged relations the native bees (bumble, digger, carpenter, mason, leafcutter, resin, cuckoo, sweat, mining, cellophane and others); butterflies (swallowtails, gossamer-wingeds, pierids, brush-footeds, and skippers); myriad moths; social and solitary wasps; bee and syrphid flies; and Earth’s first pollinators, the prodigiously diverse beetle clan. Together we can and must protect and perpetuate the precious life of our remarkable planet.
Scribed by John Root, a naturalist/landscaper.
