Abstract
Imagine a world without green trees, fun parks, or colorful gardens. As cities grow, these green spaces often become concrete sidewalks and buildings. Lack of plants in cities can harm pollinators that rely on green spaces for food and housing. Pollinators are birds and insects that carry pollen or seeds from one plant to another, helping new plants grow every year. If you live in a city, you can help many of these plants and pollinators by building pollinator gardens in your neighborhood—whether that be in your backyard, a community garden, or even on your rooftop! A pollinator garden provides shelter, food, and connection points for important pollinators. These gardens are not only good for pollinators, but they are good for you too! Read on to see how to make your garden, what to decorate it with, and how it can help many insects, plants, and even kids like you!
Gardens Serve as Refueling Stations for Pollinators
Imagine you are in gym class, and you have to run four laps around your school’s track (Figure 1). You are sweating and tired by lap two. Luckily, there are fueling stations near the track, full of water and your favorite snacks! After you eat the snacks and drink the water, you have more energy and can keep running. Without the fueling stations you would not have been able to finish all those laps. The rest stations that you rely on during a long run on a hot day are like gardens that serve as stopping points for pollinators traveling across cities. Pollinator gardens act as “green stepping stones”, helping pollinators such as monarch butterflies, ants, and birds refuel and move safely through big cities throughout North America, like New York City, Los Angeles, and Mexico City [1].
- Figure 1 - (A) The children running laps in gym class use fueling stations as stopping points where they can refuel with water and snacks, so they can keep running.
- (B) Rooftop gardens help insects to get across cities, just as fueling stations help children finish their laps. Building gardens in cities is important for visiting pollinators and for promoting biodiversity.
What Is an Urban Pollinator Garden?
An urban pollinator garden is a garden in a city or suburb. These gardens are refueling and resting stations that support many migratory and residential pollinators. Your pollinator garden can have native plants and flowers, birdhouses, and rocks. Native plants are important because these are the plants that pollinators in your area are used to. You might be wondering where to plant a pollinator garden. Your backyard, schoolyard, neighborhood parks, or even your rooftop can all be perfect spots. Rooftop gardens give insects and birds a place to go in the city, away from the ruckus. You have probably seen birds, butterflies, and bees flying near tall buildings, but did you know that insects like ants can also make it to the tops of city rooftops? By adding gardens throughout your city, people can help many local pollinators and plants. Visit Xerces Society for more information!
Urban Pollinator Gardens Can Help Migratory Pollinators
Imagine a monarch butterfly on its long migration. When the weather starts to get cold in North America, monarchs travel to Mexico, where it is much warmer. When they land in Mexico, they hang out together in trees and wait for spring. In the springtime, they lay eggs on milkweed. The eggs hatch as larvae commonly called caterpillars, which eat a lot of milkweed and grow very big. Then they hang upside down and form their green chrysalis, which they use to turn from caterpillars into the next generation of monarch butterflies.
Monarchs are fragile yet mighty! They use gardens and fields full of flowers as stopping sites to rest and eat as they travel. This is why it is so important to make sure that there are plenty of gardens and fields with milkweed and flowers, where they can stop and refuel on their long journeys. Monarchs are what is known as an indicator species, which means that they can tell us how well an ecosystem is doing. When monarch populations are high, that means the ecosystem is doing well. When their populations are low, this means the ecosystem is doing badly [2].
Monarchs also help the ecosystem by pollinating flowers. Monarch populations contribute to the biodiversity of an ecosystem and, without them, there would not be as many flowers to smell. You can help monarch butterflies and other important pollinators by planting pollinator gardens that can give these butterflies access to shelter and food as they migrate.
Urban Pollinator Gardens Can Help Residential Pollinators
Ants are found in cities around the world, like Tokyo, Japan; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Quito, Ecuador. Even though you may need a magnifying glass to see them, ants are important for their ecosystems because they keep the soil healthy and pollinate flowering plants [3]. Ants differ from monarchs because they do not migrate—instead, they are residential pollinators, meaning they stay in the same ecosystem year-round. You can find ants in parks, on rooftops, and even in your backyard [3]. You might be wondering how such tiny critters can live in big cities. They eat, sleep, and move around using pollinator gardens. See if you can find ants in the gardens at your home, school, or local park.
However, ants are in trouble! As cities grow, there are fewer spaces with grass and trees for pollinators, and these spaces are often separated from each other. This can lead to a decline in insect populations because there are fewer places for them to live and eat, leading to a loss of biodiversity. However, urban pollinator gardens give residential pollinators a place to live, helping to preserve biodiversity [3].
Urban Pollinator Gardens Help Birds
Did you know that birds can also be pollinators? The hummingbird is a great pollinator that can be seen flying around in cities. These tiny birds eat the nectar from flowers and spread pollen in the process. However, in cities, hummingbirds (as well as other birds) are in danger. Tall buildings and the lack of urban green spaces puts birds at risk of getting hurt. Without proper spaces to rest and drink nectar from flowers, hummingbirds are in danger of dying from exhaustion. However, by adding pollinator gardens around the city, we can increase the spaces available for hummingbirds to visit. Pollinator gardens with beautiful flowers and birdhouses give birds places to eat and thrive.
Urban Pollinator Gardens Are Good For You, Too!
Now you understand how pollinator gardens are good for pollinators, but did you know they are also good for you? Think about all the different things you like to do outside in nature, like play sports, play on playgrounds, or hang out with friends. Now, think about how that makes you feel. Spending time outside in the sun and around nature helps you feel happy, and being active outside helps you stay healthy. But imagine if you did not have any pretty flowers to look at, any green spaces to run around in, or any interesting animals to see. This would make spending time outside a lot less interesting, right?
Thankfully, there are many things you can do as an environmental steward to help support the beautiful nature around you. First, gardening in an area with little green space can help you to get outside more and enjoy nature. Your pollinator garden can be a fun thing for you to do, and it can teach you more about gardening and wildlife [1]. You can even teach your friends and family about your garden and maybe even inspire them to plant gardens of their own!
Making an Urban Pollinator Garden
Creating a pollinator garden in a city is easier than you think! Start by finding an open, sunny spot in your neighborhood or backyard. Choose the native flowers and plants that you want to grow. Different flowers and plants need certain amounts of sunlight and water, so choose ones that work best for the amount of sun and water your garden receives. Include a mix of plants that flower at different times, to support pollinators year-round. You can also choose to plant flowers called perennials, which will return to your garden every year. Many perennial plants are beloved by your favorite pollinators, including milkweed, which attracts beautiful butterflies like the monarch.
You can visit the Xerces Society website for plant and flower information. Finding the best flowers and plants is like a fun puzzle! You can also plant vegetables near flowers to help the veggies grow bigger (Figure 2). This is called companion planting. Now it is time to start building! You can build your garden using wood or even a kiddie pool! Fill it with soil, add rocks, twigs, logs, and bird feeders to help bees, ants, and birds feel at home. More information on what you can decorate your garden with can be found at Xerces Society! Once it is planted, your urban garden will support pollinators and bring nature right to you (Figure 3)!
- Figure 2 - Example of a pollinator garden full of native flowers and plants that pollinators love.
- You can also add your favorite fruits or vegetables to the garden to help them get pollinated by visiting insects, which is known as companion planting. Adding birdhouses and rocks can also help provide shelter for visiting birds and insects.
- Figure 3 - A checklist showing how you can become an environmental steward.
- You have already accomplished some of the steps, by learning about the importance of pollinators. Nice job! Now all you need to do is to put what you have learned into action. Research the plants native to your city and make your own garden! The pollinators will be very thankful for any help you can provide them.
Glossary
Migratory: ↑ Describes animals that move from one place to another based on the seasons.
Residential: ↑ Describes a pollinator that lives in one general location.
Native: ↑ Belonging to a particular place.
Chrysalis: ↑ The protective coating made by a caterpillar to undergo metamorphosis.
Biodiversity: ↑ The variety of living things in one area.
Environmental Steward: ↑ A person who helps protect the environment.
Perennials: ↑ Plants that return to your garden every year.
Companion Planting: ↑ growing plants side-by-side so that they grow better.
Conflict of Interest
The author(s) declared that this work was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Acknowledgments
Thank you for taking the time to read about how you can become an environmental steward and plant a garden in your city.
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References
[1] ↑ Egerer, M., Karlebowski, S., Conitz, F., Neumann, A. E., Schmack, J. M., and Sturm, U. 2024. In defence of urban community gardens. People Nat. 6:370. doi: 10.1002/pan3.10612
[2] ↑ Agrawal, A. A. 2019. Advances in understanding the long-term population decline of monarch butterflies. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 116:8093–5. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1903409116
[3] ↑ Boeing, J., Cuper, K., and Menke, S. B. 2022. Ant species richness in the urban mosaic: size is more important than location. Urban Ecosyst. 26:605–15. doi: 10.1007/s11252-022-01308-6