Fredericton Botanic Garden demonstrates importance of making space for pollinators
UNB biologist hopes pollinating flowers will become commonplace in N.B. gardens
Stephen Heard's footsteps crunch through the gravel of Fredericton's Botanic Garden.
He's walking through the pollinator garden, started in 2019, which gives hummingbirds, butterflies, bees and other pollinating creatures a chance to thrive in an environment.
"Here we have tried to have a variety of things that attract different kinds of pollinators. So we have some things will be attractive to hummingbirds, some things will be favoured by butterflies, some things for bees."
Heard, a biology professor at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton and a member of the board of directions of the Botanic Garden, calls the space "just spectacular."
The garden helps in two ways. It provides a safe space for "our pollinators [that] are under some stress," Heard said. "Resources for them is a good thing."
Secondly, the garden works as a demonstration project. "Our having a pollinator garden here is not going to fix the worldwide problem."
But if people can see what these gardens do and how good they look, Heard hopes that people will start to plant flowers like the ones in the Botanic Garden in their own spaces, which "can have a much larger effect than just this pollinator garden," he said.
According to the Botanic Garden's website, the space provides a habitat and floral resources to native pollinators and serves as an educational tool for people wanting to do a similar thing in their gardens.
"We've got lots of cone flower, echinacea, a lot of brown-eyed Susan," said Heard. "There are just dozens of things in bloom here."
He said that "showy flowers," such as goldenrod and swamp milkweed, are an advertisement to attract the pollinators.
"If they're showy, they will do something for some pollinator."
As the Botanic Garden has a small dedicated staff and relies heavily on volunteers, they have planted almost exclusively perennial plants, which are easier to maintain once established.
"They need less weeding, they need less watering, really less of everything," said Heard.
With a variety of spaces to choose from, you can look at the public art available, then go for a walk or run in the open green spaces, smell some flowers and watch the wildlife in the flowering gardens, Heard says.
Heard also loves the changing nature of the garden as it's open year round, although winter might not have much in bloom. But the rest of the time, "You can come every week because there will be something different."
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