Pollinator Plants of Ocean Shores
I have not seen too many flowers around Ocean Shores. I cannot remember seeing many bees, butterflies, or other insects (outside of mosquitos) either. Such insect pollinators are necessary to produce most of the plant and food crops we eat, as well as for the flowers we enjoy.
We do not grow a lot of food in Ocean Shores. (The deer usually beat us to it!) However, at Garden by The Sea (GBTS) we have a great deer fence. With careful planning of what to grow and help from some great volunteers, the Ocean Shoes Food Bank has been able to provide significant fresh produce from our eight dedicated beds. They and our other gardeners have been able to grow among others: beets, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, peas, beans, carrots, zucchini, radishes, turnips, and even cherry tomatoes and peppers. BUT, none of these will bear fruit without pollinators! That is the main reason I decided to focus on flowers instead of vegetables this year. If we do not have flowers, we won’t have the best chance of harvesting produce.
Although GBTS has a deer fence, I eventually want to plant, successfully grow flowers, and beat the deer at my own home. Since GBTS is my testing ground, my pollinator-flowers-to-try list includes flowering plants for cool maritime coastal climates, that are good pollinators AND that have a reasonable chance at resisting Ocean Shores deer. I wanted to focus on annuals at my GBTS plot but that might be a bit tricky. Most of the plants on my list are perennials. That makes some sense, since most annual flowers are warm season crops that need warm soil to get started and warm to hot summer days to flower. Perennials are tougher since they need strategies to survive the winter.
Sometimes tender perennials or biennials that are usually grown in warmer climates can be grown as annuals on the coast. The best annuals or annual-like pollinators to try are: Bellflower (Campanula carpatrica), Black Eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta), Impatiens, Marigold-Calendula (Calendula officinalis), Marigold-Tagetes (Tagetes tenufolia and T. signata), Snapdragons (Antirrhinum majus), and Coastal Verbena. I’ll try as many of these as I can find seeds for and have room for.
Maritime gardeners report having better luck with perennial pollinators. Since they do not need replanting each year, I am becoming more drawn to them anyway. Less work. Here are a few from my list I am planning on trying: Coneflower (Echinaceae), Heather (Ericaceae), Lavender, Lithodora, Oriental Poppies, Sea Thrift (Armeria martima), and the culinary herbs Rosemary and Thyme. I’m also going to try some (probably deer favorites) Columbine (Aquilegia) and Shasta Daisies that have done well in my Renton garden and are good maritime pollinators. If I can get them to grow at all, I’ll try them at my Ocean Shores house and see what the deer do.
You can find my complete list as well as my list of vegetables to try at Ocean Shores on the GBTS website.
Please do come visit GBTS and check out my pollinator progress. Come by and see the Food Bank and other gardeners’ gardens too.
For information about the Garden or to register for a plot, contact: Karen Young at Karen@GardenByTheSeaOceanShores.org
This article was originally printed in The Ocean Observer, April 2018.
