There are around 352,000 known species of flowering plant on this planet and around 87% of these are pollinated by insects and other animal pollinators.
Animal pollinators include 200,000 different species of birds, beetles, bees, moths, bats, flies, hover-flies, wasps, butterflies and small mammals.
The mutualistic relationship between these flowering plants and their pollinators has been evolving for over 100,000 million years, during which time both plant and pollinator have adapted and developed physical and behavioural characteristics so that each is now mutually dependent upon the other.
Fortunately it is rare for one plant to be reliant upon just one pollinator (and vica versa) - but there is a limit to how many individual plants or pollinators you remove from an eco system before that entire eco-system collapses.
As most of the planet's eco-systems rely upon the interaction between plant and pollinator for their survival - it is of paramount importance that we do everything we can to maintain this delicate balance.
Bees and other pollinators are not only important for their value as pollinators of food for human beings. Their importance stretches WAY beyond this! For instance.....when we lose the wildflowers that provide seeds for small farmland birds we lose those farmland birds.
Also, bees need the wild plants that they have co-evolved with to sustain them with pollen and nectar during times when the mono crops that now cover most of our countryside are not flowering.
From a human-centric point of view, we cannot rely on limited amount of monoculture crops to feed the world. We need to maintain biodiversity, because without it we will spiral into an extinction vortex.
All life in interconnected and pollinators need flowers - need pollinators - need flowers - need pollinators. It's very simple really.......
We need to plant RIVERS OF FLOWERS !!!
Remember to source seeds and plants that have been grown organically and without using peat.
Try Caves Folly http://peatfreeplants.org.uk/ or Bee Happy Plants https://beehappyplants.co.uk/
My yard is a wildlife garden with mostly native plants. We have lived here most of the past 40 years, in a city NW of Atlanta, GA. Many folks don't understand my approach to my landscape! Imagine that. I love your posts,and read them before the sunrises...then I go out to garden and work to the music of the earth. Glad I found your writings through FB.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad too Annie.... it's lovely to connect with you across the ocean and the ether x
DeleteI like your comment 'rivers of flowers' but it was first stated by Sarah Raven who I know from Sissinghurst Castle as the beekeeper. But I share your concept. Joyce
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment Joyce. I don't know about Sarah Raven, but it's great to know that other people are using this term. Whenever I hear it I think of the lovely 'River of Flowers' charity I linked to in my blog. I remember my mother using it too when I was a child and we drove past all the amazing wildflower verges on our way up the A1 to Yorkshire. It's a bit like Bee roads, B-lines, wildlife corridors etc. Odd to think of any of these phrases being claimed by someone though....
Deletelovely flowers
ReplyDeleteTotally agree with your sentiments and we are 'Walking a Beeline' to help raise awareness of this issue.Our blog is on Wordpress so I'm not sure if re-blogging works across the platforms but if it's ok with you I could copy and paste and link.
ReplyDeletePaul
https://makeabeeline.org/