Fall Plant Sale Preview: Celebrating Pollinators

Pollinator habitats in the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden.
Photo by Sue Lannon.

 By Jason Holmes

While visiting Mount Mitchell State Park in western North Carolina over Labor Day weekend in 2016, I witnessed a native bee pressing open the lipped petals of the pink turtlehead (Chelone lyonii).  It made me think of the importance of that moment and yet how that bee had already visited hundreds of flowers that day in order to collect pollen on the side of her legs. I quickly yelled to my son to come get an up-close view. This was a perfect opportunity to show him the importance of that little creature.

Insect pollinators may seem like a small part of our daily lives, but they have an enormous impact on us. Fortunately, gardeners’ interest in pollinators appears to be growing, judging from sales of pollinator plants at our Fall & Spring Plant Sales. That's heartening for horticulturists like me, who are devoted to attracting pollinators to Duke Gardens and teaching visitors about these species’ roles in our lives.

Honey bee (Apis mellifera) on a
rudbeckia flower in the Discovery Garden.
Photo by Kathy Julian.

Most people don’t realize that honeybees are not native to North America and that thousands of other insect species were responsible for pollinating many plant species before their introduction. Bees and wasps, flies, butterflies and moths, and beetles are among the thousands of plant pollinators across North America. These beneficial insects are responsible for all insect-pollinated fruits and vegetables that provide us with most of the nutritious vitamins and minerals that we need daily, and they also broaden our diets beyond just meat and wind-pollinated grain foods.

This act of pollination allows many types of plants to produce fruits and seeds, helping to create vigorous plants over many generations.

Approximately 75 percent of all plants in the world require animals for pollination. These animals are part of many humans’ daily diets, something worth keeping in mind as we seek ways to help the plants around us thrive.

At Duke Gardens, we celebrate and promote all types of pollinators.  In the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden, a sustainable organic food garden, we donate over a ton of fruits and vegetables every year to local food relief organizations.  This is an amazing total, considering that we only garden on 2/10 of an acre.  We could never produce this incredible amount without assistance from the thousands of pollinators we see daily buzzing around the garden. In the Brody Garden, and in the Blomquist Garden of Native Plants, we have gardens designed specifically to attract these fascinating little pollinators.  We have nine honeybee hives in the Brody Garden. And with the help of dedicated volunteers, we have been building pollinator houses that we’re pleased to see attract many different beneficial species.

If you’re excited about helping pollinators, try planting species that will bring them to your garden. “Attracting Native Pollinators,” by The Xerces Society, is a great resource to learn more. If you already have these plants, consider leaving perennials longer through the fall and winter for habitat. Many of these species will create nests within the dead stems of perennial species.  Get creative and build pollinator houses or insect hotels. They’re similar to bird houses, but you leave off the front wall and pack it with small stems of bamboo so that solitary insect species can build nests inside.  Remember, if you build it, they will come!

FALL PLANT SALE INFO:
Date: Saturday, Sept. 29, 2018
Time: 9 a.m.-noon
Member benefits: Duke Gardens members get 10% off all purchases, plus access to the members-only previews sale from 8-9 a.m., and a full list of plants in advance! Join online or on site.
Parking: Free.
Pets not permitted. Please see Duke Gardens' pets policy here.
Wagons + boxes: Our supply is limited; please bring your own if possible, and you'll have more time to spend gathering beautiful plants.
Your support helps Duke Gardens to provide summer internships to aspiring horticulturists from across the nation.
Please see our event page for more information, and we'd love for you to spread the word by sharing the event on Facebook and inviting your friends.
Thank you!

Jason Holmes is curator of the Doris Duke Center Gardens at Duke Gardens. This article is adapted from a previous post in Sept. 2016.

Making Botany Come Alive

Gain a deeper understanding of plant parts and their roles in "Basic Botany."
Photo by Bill Snead.

Lots of people like to garden, and many appreciate a beautiful garden design, but how many know exactly how plants manage water and nutrients? What makes them grow bigger flowers or juicier fruits? If you have ever wondered about these things, consider joining us for Alec Motten's "Basic Botany and Plant Growth" class beginning on Thursday, Feb. 15, from 6-9 p.m.

Motten is a distinguished associate professor emeritus in Duke's Department of Biology, and his passion and engaging way of teaching also made him a quick favorite among Duke Gardens instructors. You'll see why if you take his class. In the meantime, Motten offered some insights about himself and his love for plants in the following email exchange from 2016:

Alec poses with a beautiful friend.

Tell us about your background and experience.
I earned my Ph.D. in zoology at Duke in 1982 and received undergraduate degrees in botany from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1970 and in zoology from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1976. I've always straddled the line between traditional botanist and zoologist designations and consider myself an equal-opportunity natural historian.

My primary responsibility at Duke has been teaching undergraduates an array of courses, including introductory biology, organismal diversity, botany, ecology, and genetics and evolution. I've also taught writing for first-year students and senior biology majors. My research interests are in evolutionary biology, pollination ecology and plant reproductive biology.

For my doctoral dissertation I studied plant-pollinator interactions in the spring wildflower community of Duke Forest. I still consider March and April my favorite time to be in the woods, and I like to lead spring wildflower hikes to local natural areas.

In my spare time, I enjoy hiking, camping and canoeing. During travels in the U.S. and abroad, I look forward to opportunities to learn the local flora and fauna and indulge my interest in wildlife and nature photography.

Learn how plants manage water in response
to the environment. Photo by Orla Swift.

What can we expect from your class, and what do you hope participants will gain from it?
Students in the class will get a whirlwind tour of basic plant biology and learn how plants are put together, how they function, grow and reproduce, and how they interact in different ways with animals. Extensive, colorful handouts will be provided to help students follow along with the many different topics we'll cover.  I'll also bring in live specimens and lots of demonstration materials for hands-on activities and student personal observations.

Although any science class necessarily includes a certain amount of jargon, I'll keep that to a minimum and make sure to explain technical terms in language accessible to a non-specialist. My experience is that folks taking this class all have some interest in plants, often from a gardening or environmental conservation perspective, and my hope is to expand on that interest by helping students make connections with aspects of plant biology they are less familiar with. Plants are often taken for granted in our society -- they can be the unnoticed "wallpaper" of our world -- and I'd like to provide a deeper appreciation of just how amazing plant biology can be.

Learn how the structures of plants attract specific 
pollinators. Photo by Annabel Renwick.

What are you most excited about in this class?
In a time when much of academia is caught up in either increasingly narrowly focused topics or trendy multi/inter/cross-disciplinary studies, it is refreshing to teach a rather more traditional subject and help students delve into it with fresh eyes and new curiosity.  I always look forward to this opportunity to share my enthusiasm for botany with willing, interested students in a largely informal, relaxed setting -- no quizzes or papers! And, without a set curriculum to cover for an exam, I like being able to go off on botanically oriented tangents as student interests and unexpected opportunities may lead. The students and I always learn something new!

Motten's class meets for four Thursday night sessions, from Feb. 15 to March 8, from 6-9 p.m. If you are interested in learning more, please check out the class description for "Basic Botany and Plant Growth" on our website. To register, please call 919-668-1707 or send us an email. We look forward to seeing you!

This article is adapted from a 2016 post by Sarah Leach Smith.

Plant Sale Preview: Attracting Pollinators to Our Gardens

Bee on a Formosa lily (Lilium formosanum) in the 
Page-Rollins White Garden. Photo by Robert Ayers.

By Jason Holmes

While visiting Mount Mitchell State Park in western North Carolina over the Labor Day weekend, I witnessed a native bee pressing open the lipped petals of the pink turtlehead (Chelone lyonii).  It made me think of the importance of that moment and yet how that bee had already visited hundreds of flowers that day in order to collect pollen on the side of her legs.  I quickly yelled to my son to come get an up-close view. This was a perfect opportunity to show him the importance of that little creature.

Insect pollinators may seem like a small part of our daily lives, but they have an enormous impact on us. Fortunately, gardeners’ interest in pollinators appears to be growing, as Duke Gardens saw when we offered pre-orders of a 6-plant “Pollinator Garden in a Box” preceding our Fall Plant Sale coming up on Saturday, Sept. 24. Within less than a week, we had reserved all 50 of the Pollinator Garden boxes we had prepared. We’ll have plenty of other pollinator plants at the sale, and the excitement over them is heartening for horticulturists like me, who are devoted to attracting pollinators to Duke Gardens and teaching visitors about these species’ roles in our lives.

Most people don’t realize that honeybees are not native to North America and that thousands of other insect species were responsible for pollinating many plant species before their introduction. Bees and wasps, flies, butterflies and moths, and beetles are among the thousands of plant pollinators across North America. These beneficial insects are responsible for all insect-pollinated fruits and vegetables that provide us with most of the nutritious vitamins and minerals that we need daily, and they also broaden our diets beyond just meat and wind-pollinated grain foods.

This act of pollination allows many types of plants to produce fruits and seeds, helping to create vigorous plants over many generations.

Approximately 75 percent of all plants in the world require animals for pollination. These animals are part of many humans’ daily diets, something worth keeping in mind as we seek ways to help the plants around us thrive.

A pollinator house in the
Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden.
Photo by Nick Schwab

At Duke Gardens, we celebrate and promote all types of pollinators.  In the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden, a sustainable organic food garden, we donate over a ton of fruits and vegetables every year to local food relief organizations.  This is an amazing total, considering that we only garden on 2/10 of an acre.  We could never produce this incredible amount without assistance from the thousands of pollinators we see daily buzzing around the garden. In the Brody Garden, and in the Blomquist Garden of Native Plants, we have gardens designed specifically to attract these fascinating little pollinators.  We have nine honeybee hives in the Brody Garden. And with the help of dedicated volunteers, we have been building pollinator houses that we’re pleased to see attract many different beneficial species.

If you’re excited about helping pollinators, try planting species that will bring them to your garden. “Attracting Native Pollinators,” by The Xerces Society, is a great resource to learn more. If you already have these plants, consider leaving perennials longer through the fall and winter for habitat. Many of these species will create nests within the dead stems of perennial species.  Get creative and build pollinator houses or insect hotels.  They’re similar to bird houses, but you leave off the front wall and pack it with small stems of bamboo so that solitary insect species can build nests inside.  Remember, if you build it, they will come!

Jason Holmes is curator of the Doris Duke Center Gardens at Duke Gardens.

Create a Bird-Friendly Garden

By Sarah Leach Smith, Visitor Services Coordinator

Photos by Charles Twine

Joyful gardens are often more than just plants – insects, birds and other wildlife add color, energy, life and song. If you’re interested in learning more about how to attract birds to your garden, consider joining us for “I Need a Plan: Bird-Friendly Gardening." 

Lauri Lawson, a horticulturist with Niche Gardens in Chapel Hill, will teach this 2-session class, which will meet Feb. 2 and 9 from 6:30-9 p.m. Niche Gardens has been a pioneer for native plants and ideal plants for Southern gardens since 1986. Niche has a devoted local and regional following, as well as a thriving nationwide mail-order business.

Lawson has extensive experience teaching gardeners how best to grow a sustainable, low-maintenance landscape, and how to garden for birds, butterflies, pollinators and other beneficial wildlife.

“We all know about bird feeders and birdbaths, but there are many wonderful plants that are both beautiful to our eyes and attractive to a wide variety of birds,” Lawson says. “These plants can create habitat for adults and be a prime spot to raise their nestlings.”

The class will cover the basic needs of common backyard bird species and a roster of easy-to-grow plants to make them happy year round, she says. “I'm especially excited about giving bird-lovers in the class good personal attention to their specific questions and give them the knowledge needed to make their gardens an oasis for our feathered friends."

This class will happen around the same time as an excellent national event called the Great Backyard Bird Count, which encourages people to count birds in their back yards and submit the data online. The collected data will help scientists find out more about bird migration and how it is impacted by environmental changes.

We hope you will join us for “I Need a Plan: Bird-Friendly Gardening” (email or call 919-668-1707 to register), and perhaps participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count as well!