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Spring Into May: Planting for Pollinators

Royal City Nursery-Guelph-Ontario-Planting for Pollinators-anise hyssop

With pollinator month right around the corner, our favourite little garden friends are certainly on the mind, and building out your pollinator garden is an absolute must! Pollinator classics like coneflowers, black-eyed susan, and beardtongue are all wonderful to include, but there are so many more varieties that do wonders for these helpful critters. Here are a few of our favourite pollinator-friendly plants you can grow this spring to give them a helping hand year-round!

Trees for Pollinators in Guelph

When we think about pollinator plants, it’s easy to think of colourful annuals and perennials and stop there. However, there’s a whole world of pollinator-friendly plants to choose from, including trees! From food to shelter, trees provide a myriad of benefits for pollinators. Evergreens, for instance, are great for pollinators because they cut the wind, making your space feel cozier and preventing your pollinators from getting blown around by rogue gusts of wind. Planting these trees on the northwest side of your house will help keep pollinators snug and safe and will help keep your energy bill down in the winter by warding off cooler flurries!

Spring-blooming trees like our native red maple and redbud are other wonderful additions to any garden that will do wonders for bees and other pollinators in the early spring. These trees produce early spring blooms for pollinators to enjoy as they ramp up for the season, holding them over until more blooms arrive later in the year.

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Royal City Nursery-Guelph-Ontario-Planting for Pollinators-crocus

Early Spring Bloomers: Crocus and Hellebores

If you haven’t got the space for a tree or are looking for something a little more low-profile that will still help out your local pollinators, make a note right now to buy yourself some crocus bulbs! These fall bulbs are best planted near the end of the growing season, so they wake up right at the start of spring, becoming the first food source of the season for hungry pollinators that are also just waking up. 

You can further diversify your early spring pollinator food sources by also including some shade-loving hellebore plants in your pollinator garden, another gorgeous early bloomer. These lovely spring bloomers will help hold your local pollinators over until everything else is in bloom. We’re sold out of hellebores for the season, but set a reminder in your phone to pick some up next April!

Royal City Nursery-Guelph-Ontario-Planting for Pollinators-MAHONIA

Mahonia (Oregon Grape)

Mahonia are shade-loving broadleaf evergreens that are easy to tame and prune as you wish. Their brilliant yellow flowers are considered delicacies by bees, butterflies, moths, and hummingbirds, and they eventually develop into tart, grape-like berries. If you’re a fan of the flavour, you can make jams, jellies, and syrups, or you can leave them in the bush for the birds to enjoy throughout the fall and winter. 

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Lady’s Mantle

Lady’s mantle features large leaves with a lovely profusion of yellow blooms that pollinators can’t get enough of. If you look at how their leaves are shaped, you’ll see that their stems attach in the middle of the blade, creating a divot at the top of the leaf that collects water droplets. These divots provide easy-to-access water sources to smaller pollinators like bees and butterflies that reduce the risk of drowning, making them perfect additions to any pollinator-friendly garden!

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Anise Hyssop

The anise hyssop is, without a doubt, one of the best pollinator-friendly plants out there. A member of the mint family, anise hyssop produces gorgeous spikes of blooms in almost every colour that last for about a month and give off a delectable licorice scent. Your local bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds will be obsessed with your anise hyssop, making your garden pulse with life. Be sure to get a few of these beauties to plant next to your veggies, to ensure you’re putting all of that increased pollinator action to work!

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Bonus: Building a Bee Bath in Your Ontario Garden!

To ensure your pollinators have ample water, I recommend including a bee bath in your garden. Deeper ponds and pools are lovely and make great water sources for birds and other larger animals, but you’ve got to remember that many pollinators have short little legs that make getting water a perilous endeavour. Giving these pollinators their own curated water source is a wonderful way to ensure these little dears stay hydrated without concern.

To make a bee bath, simply get a glazed pot saucer and fill it with stones, then top it off with a shallow layer of water that’s just deep enough for your tiny visitors to drink from but not so deep that it fully submerges the stones. That way, bees, butterflies, moths, and other tiny pollinators can easily get their fill of water without the risk of drowning!

When you’re designing your pollinator haven this month, remember that pollinators need much more than pretty May/June blooming flowers to stay happy and healthy! As you design your space, include food sources for all seasons, protection from wind and weather, and easily accessible water sources. Your neighbourhood pollinators will thank you!


For more great tips and advice to help you create your pollinator-friendly garden this spring, come visit us at Royal City Nursery in Guelph, Ontario! We’ll get you set up with some of this season’s best spring pollinator plants, along with everything else you’ll need to make your garden the pollinator haven of your dreams!

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