Providing healthy habitats for pollinators is a good way to protect and promote the food supply, according to Cynthia Pohl.
The instructor of the Introduction to Pollinators workshop held during Hort Week 2016 at Olds College, Pohl has a Delburne-area ecological company, Living Lands Landscape & Design.
“More than a third of everybody's food that we have relies on pollinators,” Pohl told the Gazette. “They have huge economic value across the world. Every ecosystem that we know of relies on the active pollinators.”
A pollinator is any insect or any animal that allows for successful pollination between plants, she said.
“It moves the pollen from the stamen of the plant to the pistil of the plant, allowing for sexual reproduction of plants,” she said.
About a dozen people took part in the workshop on July 19.
“The participants learned about what pollinators are, why they are important, and how you can help build healthy pollinator habitat,” she said.
As part of the workshop, participants constructed nesting structures for pollinators.
“They learned about the two elements that you need to have in your landscape to have healthy habitat,” she said. “There's food, which is provided by the plants, and then they learned about what different types of bees are going to use for nesting structures.”
The nesting structures built by participants were specifically designed for use by indigenous, solitary, cavity-nesting bees.
“These are for bees that are native to Alberta; they are not for honeybees,” she said. “These are structures to make potential nesting habitat for indigenous bees.”
Having attended Hort Week at Olds College for years, as a participant and now as an instructor, Pohl calls the week a very worthwhile endeavour.
“Getting people exited about plants and about nature and how we fit into the big picture is very exciting,” she said.
Hort Week 2016 at Olds College ran from July 18 to July 22.
Other scheduled instructors at the 2016 Hort Week included Jane Reksten, Edith Ryning, Janet Melrose, Lyndon Penner, Jenni Cyman, Danielle Pyper and Ben Fulkerth.
"Every ecosystem that we know of relies on the active pollinators."Cynthia Pohl Hort Week instructor
