Every garden needs pollinators. Without them, there would be limited flowers and even fewer fruits and vegetables.

Pollinators are basically looking for two things when they visit your plants:

Nectar, which is loaded with sugars

Pollen, which provides a balanced diet of proteins and fats.

Ways to attract pollinators to your garden:

Add native plants in your plant mix. . 

Choose several colors of flowers. Pollinators have good color vision to help them find flowers and the nectar and pollen they offer.

Plant flowers in clumps. Flowers clustered into clumps of one species will attract more pollinators than individual plants scattered through the habitat patch.

Include flowers of different shapes. There are different species of pollinators in Maine, and they are all different sizes, have different tongue lengths, and will feed on different shaped flowers.

Have a diversity of plants flowering all season. Most species are generalists, feeding on a range of plants through their life cycle.

Plant where bees will visit. Bees favor sunny spots over shade and need some shelter from strong winds.

Butterflies are partial to flowers with flat umbels, where they can stop and warm their wings as well as grab a snack on the fly.

Hummingbirds need nectar-rich plants. Because of their long bill and tongue, they gravitate toward tubular-shaped flowers.

We have a great selection of plants that are great for pollinators here at Estabrook's! Find a selection of a few highlighted below:

Butterfly or Milk Weed: They are a great source of nectar for butterflies, hummingbirds, bees and other beneficial insects. Most plants are pest and disease free and deer resistant.

The milk weed name comes from the milky sap that exudes from the leaves and stems when the plant is cut or bruised. They come in a variety of colors and interestingly shaped blooms are irresistible to butterflies and are critical to monarch butterfly survival and reproduction.

Wild Mint: Dense whorls of tiny, white, pale pink, or lavender, bell-shaped flowers nearly hidden by the opposite leaves in hairy leaf axils on the square stems of a branched, minty-smelling plant.

New Jersey Tea: features glossy leaves, numerous clusters of bright white flowers and a mounding shape that make this compact shrub a popular garden member. A host plant for Spring Azure and Summer Azure butterflies, New Jersey Tea is also attractive to hummingbirds, which eat the tiny insects that busily pollinate the small flowers. The name New Jersey Tea was coined during the American Revolution because its leaves were used as a substitute for imported tea.

Perennial Geraniums: The flowers float on top of the plant in shades of white, blue, pink, magenta, purple, lavender, and periwinkle blue. The flowers are small—about one inch—and cupped-shaped, attracting plenty of butterflies and bees.

Asters: Cold-hardy perennials with daisy-like flowers, asters are the pollinator stars of the garden from late summer through fall. Growing 1 to 6 feet tall, depending on variety, these upright flowering plants bear cheerful star-shaped flower heads ranging in color from purple to white to blue. As well as being a valuable pollinator plant for bees and butterflies, its tasty seed heads are sought by cardinals, chickadees, finches, nuthatches, and many other seed eaters.

Brown Eyed Susan: Masses of yellow daisies with brown centers make this a late-season garden standout. Plants burst into bloom in late summer through fall, or until a hard frost. Flowers are produced at the ends of many-branched, erect stems with narrow leaves, so the plants are completely covered with blooms.

Fireworks Golden Rod:  is well named. In late summer, the bright yellow sprays of tiny flowers look just like an exploding skyrocket on the 4th of July. This is a group of summer/fall blooming native wildflowers that are easy-to-grow and provide ample nectar for butterflies and bees. Goldenrods are resistant to browsing rabbits and deer.

Coneflower: Also known as echinacea, are tough perennials in the daisy family (Asteraceae) native to the United States that bloom in midsummer and through Fall frost. Deer-resistant, coneflowers are beloved by butterflies, bees, and songbirds. The name “coneflower” comes from the flower’s raised cone-like center which attracts butterflies and bees.