Viewing post #2105544 by Joolie

You are viewing a single post made by Joolie in the thread called Seed offerings discussion, Q&A, hyping.
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Nov 14, 2019 12:40 PM CST
Name: Julie
Seattle (Zone 8a)
Bee Lover Birds Plant and/or Seed Trader Hummingbirder Region: Pacific Northwest
If you live somewhere without year round hummingbirds, you can plant flowers normally evolved to attract hummingbirds with throats too long for even long-tongued bees and select the type that will open only before or after any hummingbird migrations. My red hot poker flowers and cuphea/cigar flowers are reserved for hummingbirds and no one else even tries it as the flower is too long. Really syrupy flowers like cape fuchsias will still get nectar robbers though so even though their flower is long, I'd nix that one. I've noticed no one seems to want to hit up my crossvine and I don't know why.

Good crops, other than your listed greens: Root veg, celery stalks, herbs if you harvest on time, legit parthenocarpic cucumbers you can get (and raise under mesh to deter bees who want to pollinate anyway).

You don't have to pollinate tomatoes and peppers (but they grow more fruit if you do) but they still attract bees. Tomatoes do prefer sonication so they specifically attract bumblebees.

If for whatever reason you don't have a lot of bumblebees in your area you can choose "complicated" flowers that honeybees tend to shun, like lupines (though they may come with lupine aphids) and snapdragons. I've also noticed very few insects care to bother with fancy pansies.

There's no way to prevent pest insects from coming, though, and with pest insects come predators (birds and other insects), so that's a tough one. You could regularly neem oil the plants (at night after bees have gone to bed) and probably keep it pretty low traffic.

I also found a garlic spray/soil drench to deter pretty much every dang living thing including pollinators, so search Amazon for that, using that regularly may keep EVERYTHING away, especially vampires. But it also may keep people away too 😂

I've observed that my calibrachoa do not attract any pollinators at all. Sometimes I get someone trying them out but they seem to be absolutely useless to pollinators. Fancy hybrid petunias also.

Anyway, best of luck with that, I completely understand. If it buzzes or it's yellow and black, my amygdala decides it's a life or death threat and tells my nervous system. Activate super panic sweating, running, crying powers! Thumbs down It's a real pain in the 'tocks!

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