Green and Growing: Looking ahead to the 2021 pollinator season

February 16, 2021 6:52 am • Last Updated: February 16, 2021 6:55 am

By Kathy Connolly, Special to The Times

The beach plum (Prunus maritima) provides early forage for bees with April blossoms. True to its name, this native shrub can live in hot, dry conditions and tolerate saltwater. (photo by Kathy Connolly)

Let’s talk about skunk cabbage. Around the last week in February, these funky blossoms smell mighty good to particular flies. Those flies offer something to the skunk cabbage, too. They are pollinators; their visits assure skunk cabbage will live to bloom another year.

Indeed, the growing season — and pollinator season — of southern New England starts sooner than you may think and doesn’t end until early November. If you’re dreaming of this year’s flowers and want to support birds and pollinators, too, the month-by-month lists below will help. See the names of native plants that, if carefully selected, will offer continuous pollen, nectar, berries, seeds, and habitat.

Why native plants?

To put it simply, native plants are the gold standard. While it is true that many nonnative plants are productive, native plants offer the highest level of pollinator and bird support to the broadest number of regional bird and insect species.

Furthermore, among the native plants, the most reliably productive are “straight species,” not cultivated varieties with snappy names like ‘Pink Persuasion’ after the botanical name. If you want to learn more, visit xerces.org/blog/cultivar-conundrum.

Botanical names make all the difference for your native plant shopping excursions. Many common names apply to two or even three plants. Many independent garden centers sometimes can order a specific plant if they don’t have inventory, but you’ll need to give them the exact botanical name.

To find those names, I suggest searching the Native Plant Trust plant-finder database, available at plantfinder.nativeplanttrust.org/Plant-Search. It offers filters for bloom times and many other plant features, as well as a “pollinator powerhouse” filter.

Blossoms and pollinators

March: We can’t plant March blossoms this year, but it’s a perfect time to observe what’s coming alive close to home or work. You may find early-flying mason bees and mining bees on the pussy willows, for instance. Other late March blossoms include silver maples and black willows. If you aren’t sure what you’re seeing, try Picture This, a helpful app for Apple or Android phones, available at picturethisai.com. It is more than 85 percent accurate and a lot of fun.

April: The number of blossoming natives explodes in April, as do the active insects. Watch the colors pop on spicebush, serviceberries, blueberries, huckleberries, early dogwoods, and azaleas. Less showy, but no less important, are the blossoms of birches, hackberries, hazelnuts, and hophornbeams.

By late April, spring ephemerals such as trout lily, rue anemone, blunt-lobed hepatica, bloodroot, and ‘spring beauty’ offer food for both bees and ants. So do violets blossom, along with golden alexanders, marsh marigolds, green-and-gold, golden groundsels, woodland strawberries, bluets, and many sedges.

May: Some of the showiest trees blossom this month, including redbuds, native cherry trees, and beach plums. Dogwoods continue their display, as do chokeberries, fragrant sumacs, Labrador tea, ninebark, Allegheny blackberries, and bush honeysuckle. Less showy but equally pollinator-friendly May bloomers include inkberries, winterberries, bearberry, sand cherry, sugar maples, white oaks, sassafras, American hollies, and hornbeams. Native fleabane abounds. Perennial penstemon begins its six-week display.

June: Sweetbay magnolias and hawthorns light up, as do American basswood, blackgum, speckled alder, red and black elderberries, swamp rose, potentilla, New Jersey tea, ninebark, and some viburnums. Rhododendrons and azaleas bloom, along with Carolina allspice, and the less showy but pollinator-friendly sweet fern.

In June, native perennial flowers arrive en masse. They include yellow baptisia, lupine, wild bergamot, spotted bee balm, yarrow, milkweeds, American heuchera, mountainmint, anise hyssop, Ohio spiderwort, and queen of the meadow.

July: Among trees, only sumacs and a southeastern native, sourwood, flower this month. Among native shrubs, we can enjoy mountain laurel, Carolina rose, swamp rose, more rhododendrons, and the less showy but pollinator-friendly bayberry.

July perennial flowers include evening primrose, several types of goldenrod, spotted beebalm, Joe-Pye weed, culver’s root, black-eyed Susans, coneflowers, boneset, large-leaved wood-aster, and blue lobelia.

August: Sweet pepperbush and steeplebush often begin blooming in July but make their best show in August, as does wetland-loving buttonbush. Some sumacs continue blooming in August. The perennial flower parade is abundant, with more goldenrod varieties, partridge peas, asters, rose mallow, and Helen’s flower. Moisture-loving cardinal flower and turtlehead bloom in August, too.

September: The stunningly pretty Franklinia tree blooms in this month. It is a southeastern native named for Benjamin Franklin, and it is now extinct in the wild. Perennial blossoms include more goldenrod varieties, more asters, New York ironweed, and white snakeroot (also called chocolate Joe-Pye weed).

October and early November: The last showy goldenrod and aromatic asters attract late pollinators in droves. Native witch hazel, our latest blooming native plant, sends out its curious yellow flowers. The flowers last until mid-November some years.

Let the planning begin!

Kathy Connolly writes and speaks on landscape design, landscape ecology, and horticulture. She can be reached at kathy@speakingoflandscapes.com.

A tiny hoverfly foraged on a witch hazel on November 16, 2019. The tree is our region’s latest blooming native plant. (photo courtesy of Tony Bacewicz)