Project Description
Going Potty for Pollinators
By Justin from the DLR Biodiversity Team
You don’t need a large garden, or even a garden at all to help our pollinators (bees, butterflies, hoverflies etc). By planting up a ‘pot for pollinators’ (or a windowbox), your patio, balcony or window ledge can become an essential ‘pollinator pitstop’. And to make it easy for us, the good folks at the AIPP (All-Ireland Pollinator Plan) and the NBDC (National Biodiversity Data Centre) have produced a downloadable step-by-step guide on how to create a pollinator pot which can be found here.
So, this weekend I decided to give it a go and create 2 such pots.
What I used:
- 2 x 50cm wide pots
- Peat-free organic compost
- 4 x pollinator friendly plants (3 perennials and 1 annual)
– Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’
– Lavandula stoechas
– Nemesia ‘Wisely Vanilla’
– Bidens (yellow)
Pot and Compost
Plant Selection
The steps I took:
- Filled the pots 2/3rds with compost
- Removed the well-watered plants gently from their containers
- Placed the plants in the pot with the tallest at the back
- Filled in around the plants with compost and pressed down to a few centimetres below the top of the pots
- Watered the pots well
Fill pot to 2/3rds with compost
One completed pot
Ongoing maintenance required:
- Ensure the pots remain moist but not waterlogged.
- When watering aim for the soil, not the plants
- Deadhead blooms regularly to prolong flowering
Within 1 minute of completing the pots I had a Bombus pratorum feeding on the lavender!
Now it is over to you. Go on make a pot for pollinators. They will love it and so will you!
Completed pots in place and looking good!
