Column: For home gardeners, our pollinators are essential

Chicago Tribune

19-05-2025

Many of us can't wait to get into our gardens, turn over that fine Illinois loam and plant. For a little sweat equity, we should have a wealth of vegetables in a few months.
Apparently, I'm not the only one raring to go since warm weather rolled in, getting those planting juices flowing. A reported 1,000 visitors from across Lake and Cook counties were at the Spring Plant Sale and Farm Festival at Liberty Prairie in Grayslake earlier this month.
That, according to the front page News-Sun story last week by Karie Angell Luc. More than 10,000 plants were at the annual sale for backyard gardeners.
Available were herbs, all sorts of vegetables, flowers and native plants. Area garden centers, too, are full of planting options in this early part of the season.
The sale is held in conjunction with Grayslake Community High School District 127 as part of its Agricultural Pathway program. Students grew annual organic vegetables, fruit and flowering plants, with proceeds benefiting the district's agriculture education.
Before the turn of the 20th century, Grayslake was a farming community, like others in the county, when hay was a major cash crop grown to feed horse-drawn conveyances, along with threshers and other simple farm implements. It's good to see educators continue the agriculture traditions.
Some of those gardeners at the sale may begin their patchwork right after Mother's Day, but that plan can backfire when a cold front moves in, like what is happening this week, and frost can nip those fragile young seedlings. Fretting over the weather, though, is only one of gardeners' worries.
We should be concerned about losing our essential pollinators. Without bees, butterflies, moths and hummingbirds, that hopeful backyard bumper crop may be lackluster.
Scientists and environmentalists tell us our vital pollinator populations are in trouble. There has been a dramatic decrease in their numbers not only here, but globally.
Unless you missed the birds and the wild bees science lesson (not the biology lecture) in junior high, you know pollination is needed to grow most of our food crops. As some farmers and backyard gardeners are known to say: It has been ever thus.
Pollination is required for the production of vegetables and fruit. If you are a gardener, you've watched industrious bumble bees or honey bees dart from blossom to blossom, collecting pollen grains and fertilizing plants.
The same is true of butterflies, which flit from plant to plant. Over quite a few summers in God's quarter-acre in this corner of northeast Illinois, I have found the annual flower lantana works wonders in attracting various butterfly species, along with those dainty, yet hard-working, ruby-throated hummingbirds searching for nectar. Perennial butterfly bushes and milkweed are also favorites of pollinators.
According to Angell Luc's gardening story, Elisabeth Neiss of Lake Villa attended the Liberty Prairie plant sale in pursuit of flowering perennials. 'I'm going for the native plants because I want to support the native pollinators, the monarch butterflies, so I'm looking for milkweed,' she said.
Once, Lake County's prairies were thick with milkweed. Turning some of the richest land into subdivisions hasn't helped pollinators withstand the pressure of civilization.
The Environmental Defense Fund estimates that one-third of the food we eat depends on the work of our essential pollinators. While populations fluctuate annually, research is showing dramatic decreases in pollinators, especially bees and butterflies.
Nationally, the population of the orange-and-black monarch butterflies, once seen during summers in the Midwest in the tens of thousands, has decreased by nearly one billion since 1990. The reason, of course, is humankind. Monarchs are now considered an endangered species.
Overuse of pesticides, habitat destruction, invasive species and climate change are taking a toll on the pollinators. Pesticides, even in small amounts, can impact bees' immune system, navigation, memory and other functions that are critical to their survival and reproduction, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has a Chicago office and has worked to protect the environment since 1970.
Home gardeners can be at the forefront when it comes to helping pollinator populations grow by planting flowers and vegetables that attract pollinators. Also, reduce the use of pesticides in your back 40.
It's like songstress Joni Mitchell chirped back in her 1970 song 'Big Yellow Taxi': 'Give me spots on my apples, but leave me the birds and the bees. Please.'