The Friendly Bug blog
GARDEning with THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND the BUGLY!
(SCIENCE-BASED OPINIONS FROM A PUBLIC HORTICULTURE EDUCATOR)
One of the most frequent and frustrating gardening conversations I have on a regular basis surround weeds and weed management. It is a frustrating and tireless concept for many gardeners, who spend several hours and countless dollars on removing weeds from their lawns, gardens, flower beds, pathways, crops, etc. This is also a very frustrating topic for scientists, naturalists, and educators- especially as they communicate the topic to home gardeners and green industry professionals. The term “weed” similar to the term “pest” indicates the presence of something (in this case, a plant) in a location where it is unwanted. This tends to vary from person to person, and also by location. An important thing to understand, is that this also varies by the animal. Pollinators, especially bees, in urban settings often rely on lawn “weeds” (such as dandelion and clover) as one of the first and most consistent sources of nectar and pollen accessible to them. Highly urbanized areas have replaced green spaces with hardscapes like asphalt, sidewalks, parking lots, and buildings. Lawns, being a staple of most developed areas, act as oases in these otherwise asphalt dominated ‘deserts’. Studies conducted on the pollinators of lawn weeds have found substantial complexes of bees, wasps, butterflies, moths, flies, and more; that consistently visit flowering lawn plants such as clover, dandelion, wild violet, and several others. These flowering plants are often very hardy, and can survive some harsh and temperamental environmental and landscape conditions (which happens to be why they thrive in these ever-changing urban and suburban landscapes). This hardiness is what allows these plants to be so widespread, especially in areas with limited space, reduced resources, and requiring little to no assistance in proliferating (as you probably already knew). Imagine being a pollinator, in an urban area, hankering for a meal. These green patches (lawns, gardens, etc.) speckled with some promising flowers, are inviting spaces with a potential source of food. The consistent availability of these flowering plants (regardless of the location of the lawn and garden) are what help pollinators bridge gaps between food availability and nesting habitat. These fill in spaces between fragmented natural areas, and increase ‘hospitable’ locations for pollinators requiring two basic things: shelter and food. Now imagine applying chemicals to your lawns/gardens, in order to remove “weeds” including these sources of “pollinator food”. Not only are you robbing pollinators of a much needed meal, you are also potentially contaminating some of these weeds which may result in detrimental effects on pollinators if they attempt to visit a flowering dandelion, which has been over-sprayed [which means that material has been sprayed on the surface of the plant] with a chemical (whether it is a fertilizer application, or a pesticide). These chemicals have various negative effects on pollinators. In the case of honey bees, and depending on the type of chemical applied, this can have various lethal [resulting in the death of the bee] as well as sub-lethal [resulting in reduced health, vigor, foraging ability, reproduction, etc.] effects that can be difficult to measure, in addition to being devastating to pollinators that rely on workers to bring food sources back to home base. Effects of these chemicals can be even harder to determine in solitary pollinators: including thousands of species of native bees in North America, and thousands of additional species of insect, bird, and mammal pollinators. So, my request to you is: rethink “weeds”. What does that term mean to you, and what does it mean for the plants in your landscape? Would you be able to tolerate the flowers that spring up in your lawns and gardens- or do you need to have a perfect carpet of turf? Try and get to the bottom of why you dislike the presence of these plants. If you cannot tolerate weeds in your lawn and garden, are you willing to minimize unnecessary chemical applications and manually remove them? Or can you take steps to reduce the impact on pollinators by taking steps to prevent contact between pollinators and chemically treated landscapes? If you want an alternative that is lower maintenance, and pollinator friendly; consider lawn alternatives such as ground covers (micro clover, etc.), container gardens, low maintenance flowers, or even hardscapes [wood and stone components replacing a traditional yard] which will minimize the need for any chemical inputs to control weeds. Consider incorporating mulch and other sustainable pest management strategies within your vegetable gardens. Adopt Integrated Pest Management as your primary plant care regime; looking at a broad, multi-faceted, and environmentally friendly pest management strategies focused on education and prevention of pest problems. Re-imagine (or as I like to say: Bee-Imagine) your landscape from the eyes of pollinators, and rethink what the term “weed” means to you!
1 Comment
Dick Moldenhauer
3/6/2017 06:11:44 pm
I straddle the chasm between a traditional (weed free) lawn and your description. I've learned to tolerate clover (before synthetic weed killer clover was considered "good" in a lawn) but I hand remove dandelions and violets and I 'm now in a maintenance mode on my 1/2 acre lot. I have native plants to attract the native pollinators and am adding more every year. No weed 'n' feed either, just natural fertilizers.
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🐝 Abi SAEED 🐝Entomologist, Pollinator Specialist, Public Science Educator, and Archives
July 2017
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