Are you hoping to attract more pollinators to your land? When it comes to supporting pollinators, there are three plant families that deserve a shout out.
Asters, Mints, and Legumes are similar in many ways, but they differ considerably in how they support pollinators. It’s important to understand family’s nutritional offerings.
Here are a few popular species from each family that tend to work well in gardens.
ASTERACEAE: Asters, Sunflowers
Some of the most showy and emergent plants you’ll find in wildflower meadows often belong to this family. Asteraceae is an incredibly diverse plant family, comprising over 24,000 species, and our region is home to a fair number of them.
Their flowers tend to be large and easily accessible to pollinators, and the pollen they produce is rich in lipids but low in protein. Lipids are important for energy storage, water retention, and plenty of other functions in insects. Having a lack of protein is certainly a drawback, but luckily other plant families do well in that department. More on that in a bit.
Native representatives of this family include:
Goldenrods (Euthamia spp.)
Fleabanes (Erigeron spp.)
Coneflowers (Echinacea spp.)
LAMIACEAE: Mints
Mints, or members of the Lamiaceae, are recognizable both by sight (their distinctive square stems) and by smell — their unmistakable fragrance. There are around 7,000 mint species in the world, and while some of those are invasive to the northeast, a fair number are native.
A pollinator in a patch of mints is like a kid in a candy store. Mints mostly offer nectar, but nectar that’s particularly rich in carbohydrates. Busy bees need their energy, and mints are where it’s at!
Native representatives of this family include:
Bee Balms and Bergamots (Monarda spp.)
Obedient Plant (Physostegia virginiana)
Mountain Mints (Pycnanthemum spp.)
FABACEAE: Legumes
Legumes, or members of the Fabaceae family, might be a surprise pick for some readers. There are somewhere between 19,000-20,000 species in this family, some of whom occur here in the Mid-Atlantic.
Legumes offer pollen that is rich in protein, as well as some nectar. The catch is that their flowers are often elaborate and difficult to access. It’s a scenario that’s more or less opposite of the aforementioned asters.
Native representatives of this family include:
Eastern Redbud (Cercis canadensis)
American Senna (Senna hebecarpa)
Blue Wild Indigo (Baptista australis)
Get Planting
No single plant family offers everything to pollinators. A garden adorned with mints and little else can provide nectar, but offers little to bees seeking pollen to make bee bread for their young. A garden rich in coneflowers and brown-eyed susans might be beautiful and offer pollen, but it’ll lack the nutritional balance that pollinators need to survive.
The plant families listed here are not the end all be all when it comes to supporting pollinators. Because insects go through metamorphosis, the needs of each life stage tend to vary considerably. For instance, moths benefit from the presence of mints and asters as adults, but their young (developing caterpillars) might rely on the leaves of oaks, cherries, poplars, or willows to survive.
The need to restore native plant diversity couldn’t be more apparent, especially when we assess the needs of the little things that make our world work. I hope you feel inclined to add some native mints, asters, and legumes to your garden. Your pollinator neighbors would certainly stand to benefit.
As always, thanks for reading.
Sebastian Harris, Conservation Easement Steward
For more information regarding the information contained in this post, check out this podcast episode from Backyard Ecology: https://www.backyardecology.net/planting-for-pollinators/