A Different Perspective on Pollinator Gardens

When designing pollinator gardens, the standard approach is often formulaic: select a palette of bee-loving flowers or butterfly-friendly plants from the nursery, install them, and call the space complete. 

It’s a tidy process, but perhaps too tidy. In practice, bees, butterflies, and other pollinators don’t just seek out the plants we curate for them. They are drawn to broader conditions — open sun, patches of warmth, and even plants we might dismiss as weeds.

 Many of these valuable species never appear on nursery lists, yet they quietly sustain pollinator populations in ways our planned gardens sometimes overlook. 

This raises an important question: should a pollinator garden be viewed less as a finished design and more as a living environment that evolves in response to its context? 

By allowing for spontaneous growth, varied light conditions, and even naturalized plants, we might achieve spaces that are more authentic, resilient, and welcoming to pollinators. Perhaps the real beauty of a pollinator garden lies not only in the plants we choose, but in the flexibility to let nature choose as well.