Towards Pollinators

My new home in southern Pasco County, Florida is largely devoid of butterflies, bees and other pollinators. There simply is no good reason for them to reside here. During my Wisconsin childhood in the 50's and 60's, all of my neighbors had flower and vegetable gardens in their landscape. Somewhere, between then and now, such things have largely disappeared and been replaced by turf and woody foundation plantings. What once sustained an entire ecology of insect life, has given way to a desert every bit as severe as the Namib. 
As I grow familiar with my new neighborhood, I have found vestiges of life. The human-dug pond across the street has all kinds of activity. Though the sides are far too steep to support a truly functional littoral zone, a great diversity of wading bids find enough feeding habitat there to remain as residents. Osprey routinely dive into the open water as do the laughing gulls.
In the trees around me, I can catch quick views of songbirds hunting for winter insects and fruit. Mixed groups, too small to really call "flocks", of tufted titmice, Carolina chickadees, and blue-gray gnatcatchers are near-daily visitors to the fringe of my yard. Palm warblers and Northern cardinals also visit often. All this gives me hope that, as I install my native-plant landscape, these birds and a great many others will take up residence or stop by to renourish themselves during migration.
Pollinators are another story. This diverse group of insects that nearly 80% of all plant life require to produce fruit and viable embryos has been strangely absent during my forays around and through my new surroundings. In the two months that I have now lived here, I have made less than a half dozen observations of butterflies and bees; no observations of other pollinators. Four total species and only two that have occurred more than once.
This shouldn't surprise me. It is a phenomenon being repeated worldwide - at least within the so-called developed world. Recent research out of Europe has shown dramatic declines in the abundance of flying insects. Just as is now occurring the the US and the rest of North America, pollinator numbers are plunging and the number of species being added to the lists of threatened and endangered species is increasing. It is much more than a honey bee colony collapse issue; it is an issue that greatly transcends this.
Pollinators have evolved with the rise of flowering plants since the Age of Dinosaurs and these relationships are often intricate. Some flowers allow just about any pollinator to effect the desired result, but most narrow the list down substantially. The "floozies" of the flowering plant world are far rarer than the respectable ones...
What this means is that the native pollinators resident to an area are best adapted to the native plants of that area. They have coevolved over hundreds of thousands of years. Many non-native plants have not brought their native pollinators with them and so remain virtually sterile.  What this also means is that a living landscape should be diverse if the goal is to sustain a diverse population of pollinators. As should be expected, different bees respond to different flowers and habitat conditions just as butterflies do. Most butterfly gardeners quickly learn that each species requires particular host plants for their caterpillars, but I find too few folks that understand the same for bees and other pollinators.
When I arrived at my new home, the north fence held a thriving colony of balsam pear (Momordica charantia) - a very weedy non-native vine that produces small gourd-like poisonous fruit. During those first few days, the yellow flowers were regularly visited by European honeybees.  Once I killed this obnoxious plant, however, the bees disappeared. Since then, I have seen only a couple of honeybees in my landscape. They sometimes visit the small clumps of Spanish needle (Bidens alba) that pop out of my turf grass lawn. They have never visited the non-native morning glory that I left alive on the same fence as the balsam pear.
On December 24, Christmas Eve day, I marked the first visit to my landscape by a native bee. I had been watching for bees for more than a month among the blooms of the non-native morning glory (Ipomoea purpurea) that I had left alone on my north and east fenceline. Weeks passed; nothing ever materialized to work the lavender blooms. That day, however, I noticed movement in the tangle of stems and blooms, and from out of one of the flowers emerged the distinctive outline of a Southeastern blueberry bee. Less than half the size of any of our native bumblebees, blueberry bees are solitary and active only for a few months in winter. By spring, they have laid their eggs and gone dormant again.  As their name suggests, these bees are native to the southeastern states from lower Pennsylvania to east Texas and they specialize on the spring blooming season of blueberries (Vaccinium spp.) and their close relatives. Most other bees that visit blueberries, rob the nectar and avoid pollinating them. Blueberry bees are vital to both native and commercial species/varieties.
Solitary bees need habitat as much as they need the right kind of flowers to survive. Blueberry bees, sweat bees, and the gorgeous green metallic bees need open soil to dig their nest chamber and lay their eggs. This is where so many gardeners make their big fail. We are conditioned to believe that bare soil is an omen of bad gardening and we rush to fill the open space with more plants or a thick layer of mulch. Both are anathemas to solitary bees. Their bodies are not big and robust so they are not equipped to burrow down through a thick covering over the bare dirt.  Plant all the blueberries you want; without bare dirt near them you will have to rely solely on somewhere else to produce the bees you need. Leave some bare spots of loose soil and you will be amazed at the difference. You'll also get the intrigue of watching these small bees excavate their burrows and sneak inside and out preparing each chamber for a single egg.
Living landscapes do not take more energy to install or maintain; just some knowledge of how to proceed and a plan for reaching your goals. As I design and plant this largely sterile new landscape of mine, I do so with targeted plantings for specific wildlife goals. I intend to document my progress in the months and years ahead.