(upbeat music) >>When I think about communities, we all kind of have a responsibility to do what we can to help members of our community, including the ones that aren't necessarily two-legged.

>>Plants flower in response to day length.

Insects emerge from hibernation based on temperature.

So we are having warmer winters and warmer springs, and the insects and the plants aren't coinciding with each other so they don't have food, which is really disturbing of course.

>>Production funding for "Virginia Home Grown" is made possible by the Mary Roper Davis and Robert Poore Roper Memorial Fund and by.

(critters chirping) (lively music) (lively music continues) (lively music continues) Welcome to Virginia Home Grown!

Insects perform many important jobs in our environment, and of the most vital groups are our pollinators.

Today we are taking a look at the plants that support them.

First, let's go to Stanardsville, where Dr. Robyn Puffenbarger met Jim Hurley and Susan Roth at their private home garden to see how they are working to feed pollinators by transforming traditional landscaping and planting meadows.

Let's take a look... >>Susan, this is an incredible garden, just full of color and shapes and sizes and all of these pollinators, I've seen so many different species of bees and butterflies already and I'm hearing lots of birds.

So can you tell me how did this come to be?

Is this all you?

>>Much of it is me.

We've been here for 10 years, but the garden was put in by the previous owner and it has a formal structure.

There are rock walls that are made from stone here, from from the land here, and it has a formal design with this terrace in the middle and there are paths on both sides so you can walk through the garden.

I left the peonies here, which were the previous owner's favorite.

And then I started planting a lot of native plants because I knew they would attract pollinators and attract birds.

For instance, the purple cone flower, goldfinches eat the seeds in the winter, so I don't cut it down.

I leave everything in the garden stand during the winter and just cut it down in March.

Other interesting plants I have planted is the Agastache at the corners, four corners of this garden for symmetry that gives the garden some structure, but they are full of bees and it smells really good.

Another native I put in was milkweed.

I planted common milkweed, not realizing that it spreads underground by rhizomes.

I put it where I wanted a tall plant and it left there and started showing up in other places.

So if it's where I don't want it, I just yank it out.

But it's a really good plant because it is host to the caterpillar of the monarch butterfly.

So we have had in the past a lot of monarch butterflies here and the caterpillars are quite showy and they do eat holes in the milkweed leaves, but that's part of their lifecycle.

And then we get the beautiful butterflies.

>>And sitting here, I'm just noticing what wonderful shade you have right on the front of the house.

On that structure, what kinds of plants are those?

>>They're two native vines.

The Virginia Creeper, I say we let it grow.

It came by itself and we thought that was a good thing and it's grown up and over and given us shade.

And we've planted trumpet honeysuckle, which is a native species of honeysuckle and that has little red flowers on it and hummingbirds like that.

>>One of the flowers I notice that you have here in the landscape is your coreopsis.

It really adds a, just a gorgeous pop of yellow.

>>Yes, it's a native, but it's also a very popular garden plant.

And that's a cultivar called moonbeam.

I love its fine texture.

I try to contrast fine textures with bold textures.

The milkweed is very bold with huge leaves >>And I see a lot of black-eyed or brown-eyed Susans.

Those look really nice in here.

>>They seed themselves around, they're native, and if if they plant themselves where I like them, I leave them.

If not, I transplant them.

Also, we do have, day lilies aren't native, but they aren't invasive so I don't worry about them.

And this, these yellow ones for instance, are often just full of bees.

>>And I understand one of the things y'all have done historically is to actually have enthusiasts come out and do surveys of your pollinators.

So you actually know what species you have year-to-year and how many of each type you have each year.

>>Yes.

We have someone who's an amateur lepidopterist, which is someone who specializes in moths and butterflies and he looks in the garden as well as in in the fields where we planted native plants.

We've replaced hay fields with native grasses and wild flowers to create habitat for insects, birds, other wildlife.

>>Well it's so inspiring to see a smaller area where you have a native predominance but with some other non-natives that you enjoy.

But it would be great to see the meadows.

Is it okay if we go over and see that with Jim?

>>Sure.

He loves to show it off.

>>I am seeing here one of my favorite native plants, the Monarda or bee balm.

It seems like you've planted a lot of that.

>>We have.

And it is just a fabulous pollinator plant and attracts all kinds of bees and butterflies.

Clear wing moths as well.

And there's a bumble bee that just landed on on a flower head right there.

And we're at the perfect time.

Full flower time for Monarda.

>>And I think it's a lovely contrast to see the Monarda with the yarrow.

Many people might confuse this with Queen Anne's lace, which is a non-native plant, but this is one of our great natives.

>>You're right, very, very easily confused.

Queen Anne's lace has a little bit different shaped flower head than than yarrow does.

And they're in the same family, so they look very similar.

But this is a plant that was already here.

It was in the seed bank when we planted this field in 2017.

Did not have to include it in the seed mix.

It's doing very well.

>>And I'm not seeing them right now, but we have seen several of our state butterfly, the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, I'm looking for them, but they are moving around and really enjoying this habitat that you've created.

>>Yeah.

>>And then you are talking about this one, Marestail?

>>This is Marestail.

This is a species that is an early arrival in a young field and will be the first to establish once you open up a lot of bare ground.

>>That's one I feel like I see spit bugs on a lot.

So you see this awesome, what looks like somebody has been doing a little foam to it and, oh and fleabane.

>>And fleabane as well.

When we first planted this meadow, this field was a swath of white from the bottom to the top and all the way across.

When given a chance to express, it just exploded.

>>But then it looks like you've done a very good job of making it so that many different things are gonna come in succession, so the pollinators have a constant source of nectar and pollen for feeding, plus the host plants that their larva would need to grow on.

>>Yeah, that that's a great point on plant selection, to try to select plants that will bloom throughout the season from April all the way through September and October.

That goldenrod out there, that's early golden rod.

Typically most species of golden rod flower in late August, September timeframe.

This is early golden rod or Solidago juncea.

We also have gray goldenrod in here or Solidago nemoralis and that's kinda a later July or or early August.

And then all this white that's in here too is Parthenium integrifolium or wild quinine.

And it blooms fairly early.

It has a long, beautiful blooming season.

This has been in bloom probably for six weeks, something like that.

>>Wow.

>>And it's got a, got a distance to go and it probably will last even longer if we had a little bit more rain.

>>Well, thank you so much, Jim, for showing us around in this amazing pollinator meadow.

It's really an inspiration in terms of the plants and the number of species that we've seen.

>>You are very welcome, Robyn.

Great to have you here.

You do not need acres of property to make a difference for pollinators.

If everyone added just a few flowering plants to their yard, we can create a web of support that bees, birds and butterflies can follow.

While native plants are the absolute best choice, there are some non-native plants which support pollinators as well.

I encourage you to check with your County Cooperative Extension Office for a list of pollinator plants which would do best in your garden.

Next, Amyrose Foll has some tips to share for pollination in the vegetable garden.

What to leave to the bees.

What to leave to the wind.

And when You might want to take matters into your own hands... (light upbeat music) >>Pollinators are responsible for about one in three bites of food that we eat every day.

Pollinators need flowers to survive for their food and to thrive.

While I do love a good flower garden, vegetables have really great and really beautiful flowers as well.

We have here some Cherokee moon and stars watermelon, some squash and some corn.

And this is busy with activity from native bees and from bees from my beehive.

Corn on the other hand is wind pollinated.

A lot of gardeners get frustrated because they want to grow more than one kind of corn, or they don't want to have cross-contamination from neighbors fields.

One thing that you can do, I have corn here.

This is Monacan Tutelo corn, and then I've got Quapaw Red over there, is we separate by time.

The silks, which represent one kernel each down here on the cob only take up about 10 to 14 days of pollen from these tassels.

So if you stagger your corn plantings by about three weeks, generally you should be really safe.

So every three weeks throughout the season, I will plant another like day to harvest variety of corn.

These are kind of let go.

They're gonna do what they're doing.

I don't plant any other watermelons, but the squash we do save seed from.

So one of the things that you can do to prevent cross pollination, because different types of squash, even if it's a winter and a summer squash can in some cases cross pollinate and the bees, while they're doing their job, might do something you don't want them to do.

You're gonna take a look down here.

You can see that we've got one beautiful squash that's going to seed here.

This is a Penobscot pumpkin, and you've got male flowers, which are generally these leggier ones here that are farther away from the central vine.

And then you've got female flowers that are gonna be closer to the vine.

They're gonna have little embryonic squashes of the base that need to be pollinated in order to continue to develop.

And if you don't want your bees to cross pollinate those squash for you, you can just simply take a male flower.

You can open that up.

You're going to find the anther, which is where your pollen is, and you're gonna find a female flower and just wipe that pollen from the anther right onto the female flower.

You can also use a paintbrush, and you can simply take those male flowers, open them up, gather a little bit of that pollen on your paintbrush, and transfer it to your female flowers.

And then once you do that, you will be using just something simple like a wide painter's tape to tape those flowers shut.

Once you do that, the squash will be pollinated.

That will stay true to seed for the next generation, and you can save those seeds for next year's garden to enjoy or to share with friends.

Pollinators play a vital role both in our environment and on our plates, in farms and in our gardens.

So the next time you think about chemical pest control or weed control, give it another think.

Respect those pollinators, protect those pollinators, and try to minimize the applications that you spread around your house or around your garden.

We can all play a role in protecting our environment and those pollinators need us.

by understanding how each plant is pollinated, gardeners can provide a diversity of plants with varying flowers, shapes, colors, sizes, and season of bloom to meet the needs of the insects, birds and other pollinators all season long.

And now I visited Mermaid City Flowers in Norfolk to meet with Dee Hall Goodwin and learn how her cut flower business feeds the community of insects.

Let's get going.

>>Well, Dee, this is very unique.

Here I am coming to talk to you about your gardens, but we're at somebody else's house and your gardens are here.

>>We are.

It started out with me growing flowers, cut flowers, in my own front garden.

>>And then I had a neighbor who saw me out there and asked what I was doing and offered up his own growing space.

And then I put out a call for additional space about a year later when I needed to expand.

And there were people who were happy to jump on the bandwagon and not have to cut grass, because I would be out there, you know, growing cut flowers and maintaining them.

>>That's awesome.

So what type of flowers do you grow?

'Cause I mean this is a beautiful space.

It came with all these hydrangeas, I'm assuming, and... >>It did.

So I grow all types of things.

We have a really long growing season here.

So it starts with hellebore in the early spring, anemones, ranunculus kind of bulbs and corms, and will continue through late fall with lots of native plants, things that are great for pollinators.

I say anything is up for being cut as long as it does well in a vase.

>>Right.

>>So a variety of things.

>>That's fantastic.

How do you choose the plants you're gonna grow?

>>So I started, I grew a lot of native plants.

Norfolk is ground zero for climate change.

We're a coastal town.

>>Right.

>>And I wanted to do things that would help mitigate some of the nuisance flooding that I had in my neighborhood, and also at my property.

And so that was my first selection for natives, for things that did well for pollinators.

I had moved from Virginia Beach where I saw goldfinches, for instance, and I wasn't seeing them.

>>Right.

>>And so I wanted to attract them and started kind of doing some research to see, what do they like?

Okay.

Well they like echinacea they like coneflower.

They love the sunflowers, they eat the seed heads.

And I like to say the garden is some for me and the cut flower business, and some for all the various pollinators that we have here.

>>So you've embraced, I'll say sustainability theory of growing some for you, but yet leaving a lot for the wildlife as well.

>>For sure.

It's part of not just my business model, but part of my life.

And so that was really important to me to, you know, make sure I incorporated that into my work as well, and be able to use it as a teaching and education tool.

>>That's fantastic.

But here now we have a garden in full sun and raised beds.

Quite opposite of the natural garden that we just walked through.

>>So this is production garden here.

It's a little bit different than the more naturalistic plantings.

>>Yeah.

>>And this is year two, so it's a little bit, you know, still a trial and error experiment.

Some things are doing really well here.

Like the mountain mint is covered in pollinators right now.

>>Yes.

Always a favorite.

>>Yeah.

Ageratum is doing well.

I've got coneflower here.

There is heavy pest pressure with adorable bunnies, raccoons, birds that leave shells and all kinds of things.

And I'm gonna add more allium next year.

>>Excellent.

>>I try to concentrate on the health of the soil and choosing plants that do well without a lot of input from me necessarily, without a lot of water, which is why native plants make a great choice again.

I try to stagger planting.

So there are lots of things that you can grow, mums, for instance.

>>Yes.

>>Take several plantings and you can have them grow throughout the seasons.

But it's also pretty easy to find native plants that bloom from pretty early in the year, or to, here, we're lucky enough to have a season that goes until October or November.

>>Yes.

>>Depending on the weather.

>>Yeah.

Well, how many locations do you have, Dee?

>>So I'm growing actively in four different plots right now.

Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less depending on the year and what the needs are for the business.

But that's where I am right now.

>>I imagine there's different soil types at those locations, so how do you handle that?

>>I tend to bring in and build up soil.

There's a farmer here who has really amazing compost and soil with biochar.

>>Wonderful.

Yes.

>>And so I, rather than trying to, you know, do soil tests and kind of go back in and, you know, make changes to the soil, I tend to build up, which is another reason that I tend to do raised beds.

It's a little more controlled that way.

As much as we can control anything - >>Yes.

Yes.

>>that's in the environment.

>>Yes, exactly.

What kind of mulches do you use?

>>Actually, strawberries.

>>Really.

You're not saying the strawberry itself?

>>Yeah.

So strawberry plants, they're evergreen here.

They are low growing.

>>Yes.

>>They will keep the soil cool.

So they are one of my favorite mulches to use.

I also like to overcrowd plants as another technique.

>>Yes.

>>To rather than, you know, having to worry about pulling weeds, which we're all gonna have weeds, but if I can minimize the number of weeds I'm gonna have, that's a good way to do so.

>>Let the plant shade the soil.

>>Right.

>>By being so tight together.

>>Yes.

Yes.

And that's a good way to do that.

I really try not to fight against what's already existing or what we see when we look at, you know, meadows or natural planting areas, how they exist.

>>Right.

>>It's not a traditional farm in that there are, you know, rows of different things that are in barrier cloth and you know, we need to pick the weeds out of them, et cetera, yeah.

>>So you do drifts of things and allow them to weave together.

>>Yes.

Yes.

And that's also great for pollinators.

I'll plant stuff specifically for them.

Like, I grow fennel, you know, and cilantro and milkweed.

I like to interplant those with the things I'm growing so I can cut some things for me, and then hopefully they'll direct their energy towards those things they might enjoy a little more than the plants that I have for production.

>>Well Dee, I noticed that you also have a succession of bloom here.

You have things that have bloomed and things that have yet to bloom in this garden.

>>Yeah, so I think about the garden, you know, as a whole year calendar.

So, flowers that go from early spring, February, through, you know, November, October or November.

I stagger planting so that there's always something in bloom.

>>Yeah, and you know, that's wonderful for pollinators because we forget about our spring and fall pollinators.

>>For sure.

>>So it's excellent to have that.

But also, it's good for your business.

>>Yeah.

>>Yeah, youve got quite a fun business too.

>>Yeah!

So, I have a Floral CSA subscription that goes from spring to fall.

I also do farmer's market that starts in April, so of course you need blooms for that.

And then I do workshops, seasonal workshops, different themes.

For instance, like in March there was a Dutch Masters theme because that's when you have, you know, the tulips.

>>Yeah.

The tulips and such.

>>Anenomes, et cetera.

>>Yes.

>>That we think of.

And then I have a summer blooms one upcoming, and we'll have dahlias and sunflowers, and then of, course, all the cool natives.

I do a native floral arranging workshop.

So there's always something to cut and to learn and to share.

I really take a holistic approach to the garden.

It's not just about the two-legged creatures here.

There are lots of flora and fauna.

>>Yes.

>>And I want this to be a garden where I can share with the creatures that are existing, and I'm not trying to get rid of them or push them away, rather, I welcome them in the pollinator garden.

I know how important it is.

We just had the monarch butterfly make a comeback off the endangered list.

And so we see how important it is for people to be out here and doing things that support their habits.

>>Yes.

And our actions make a difference.

>>For sure.

>>And even our lack of action makes a difference.

>>Definitely.

Yeah.

>>Thank you.

Thank you for sharing this and thank you for having us out.

>>Thank you for coming!

What a great example to focus not only on personal or in Dees case, business needs, but to take into account the needs of the insects and birds which pollinate our flowers as we plan and manage our gardens.

And now, Shana Williams explains the beneficial cycle of pollinators and plants and how she saves seeds.

(upbeat music) >>One thing that I enjoy about gardening is allowing some of my lettuce and different produce to go to seed.

They bring in so many pollinators.

So right here is I have some romaine lettuce and various types of lettuce, but what I often do is I inter-sow tomato or pepper plants in those.

They are bringing in my pollinators, and as they bring in my pollinators, they get a chance to have some food, but they're also hanging around, so when my tomatoes and peppers start to blossom and bloom, the pollinators also migrate to those areas as well.

So you see some beautiful blossoms, but here you also see that some of them have started to close up.

That means that they've been pollinated and they're starting to form their seed pods.

Now this one is still not ready yet.

So over here I have some that are starting to turn brown and they're dried.

I'll take those seed pods and I'll open it up.

But I noticed that this one is still kind of wet, so I don't wanna harvest it when it's wet.

I wanna make sure that it's dry.

I also have some carrot seeds and I have some beet seeds here.

And these carrot seeds I allowed to dry on the stem as well as the beet seeds before I cut them.

Or I can just simply cut them when they're slightly green and allow them to dry fully in the greenhouse or any area that has low humidity.

So I have a jar here.

I'm gonna slide some of my beet seeds into this jar.

Don't close that jar right away, because if I seal this container and there's still moisture, mold will form, my seeds will basically, they won't be viable for me to be able to plant them in the coming year.

This right here is arugula.

On larger quantities, will take my seeds either in a bag or a plastic container, and I will break them up.

And knowing that I'm getting hundreds of hundreds of seeds just in a small little stalk, you always wanna make sure that you label your containers.

And I'll put the year on it, because that's very important.

And then once I do that, I'll just transfer those seeds into this bag.

But the key thing is I still, once again, I do not close the bag.

I leave the bag still open, because that will allow all the moisture to escape.

When I allow things to go to seed, my pollinators get plenty of food.

And then at the same time, I know that I'll have seeds for next year to be able to add seeds to my garden.

So why don't you try doing this?

Happy gardening.

Insects and other animals pollinate 80% of the crop plants we grow.

They feed our world, and we cannot survive without them.

Bringing this more closely to home, the U.S. Department of Agriculture believes pollinators are responsible for one out of three bites of food we take every day.

These pollinators include bees, butterflies and moths, birds and bats, beetles and other insects.

I hope you have learned more about the needs of pollinators, the important role they play in our lives, and the need to think about how we can improve our gardens to support them.

See you soon.

And until then, remember, gardening is for everyone and we are all growing and learning together.

>>Production funding for Virginia Home Grown is made possible by (bird cawing) the Mary Roper Davis and Robert Poore Roper Memorial Fund and by... (birds chirping) (bright instrumental music) (bright instrumental music continues) (bubbly electronic outro)