MAHOOSUC LAND TRUST
Pollinators in the Garden
Who are our Pollinators?
Did you know that we chose the plants in the garden to attract monarchs and other native pollinators? In fact, we've chosen plants to help them at every stage of their lives—from egg to caterpillar to adult. To learn more about those plants, visit our Garden page.
Want to know who the pictured pollinators are above? Visit the Mahoosuc Land Trust’s Habitat for All Pollinator Project on iNaturalist to see which birds and insects have been observed in our garden.
Pollinators may be our planet's most ecologically and economically important group of animals. They provide stability for every terrestrial ecosystem in the world, because wild flowering plants depend on these native bees, flies, butterflies, beetles, moths, bats, birds and other animals to reproduce. Other wildlife then eat the fruits and seeds that result from pollination, spreading the seed that in turn give rise to future generations of plants. Most of the world's other wildlife (including insects) — and more than 250,000 wild flowering plants — need native pollinators to exist.
Here are some more pollinator facts you may not know:
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Many wild plants have evolved specifically to be pollinated only by beetles, or only by hummingbirds.
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There are more than 20,000 species of bees described globally, and more than 4,000 of them are native to North America.
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This includes 46 species of bumblebees north of Mexico — and doesn't even account for solitary bees, which are more common than either honeybees or bumblebees.