What can I/We do?
The Nectar Point Network is an example of how individuals, families and groups can build resilience into impoverished neighbourhood habitats.
There are three reasons why people decide to engage with the nectar point network;
-as gardeners they want to help maintain a thriving population of pollinators by planting nectar- and pollen-rich plants to ornament their gardens;
-as plant growers they want to take on the role of a community hub to help their neighbours join the network by offering them plants, they themselves have propagated, to get started and so spread the network;
-as citizen scientists they want to carry out experiments to understand more about pollination in their gardens and pass on this personal body of knowledge to help others
These three categories are not mutually exclusive and are interrelated. The first two groups are easily defined from their motives and actions. However, the latter category of citizen scientist requires clarifying and this clarification is provided through the engagement of people in an important research area of pollination biology where citizens can make a practical contribution. This involves trying to answer the central question of pollination research today: are pollinators limiting the production of seeds/fruit in specific plants and places?. This is also known as 'the pollination deficit question' and is troubling amateur and professional growers alike. In relation to citizen science, it is a local question which may be partly answered indirectly by counting the population of pollinators in field or garden. The use of 'bee tubes' as nest sites for solitary mason bees offers much scope for population studies in a garden setting . A more direct approach is to measure the process of setting of seed or fruit, The NPN promotes this approach, not least because identifying and measuring the population size of pollinators is not easy. Also, in as far as pollination is a human ecosystem service, the important economic outcome of pollination is plant reproduction, which may be measured directly by counting the numbers of fruits and seeds produced by particular plants during their flowering period. In this connection, two research models for citizen scientists are the sunflower and hellibore models of seed production.
Objective
The objective is to establish nectar points, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, to promote ecological connectivity between urban families and 'place', thereby realising the many benefits of interacting with local biodiversity. A nectar point is a location e.g. a garden, park, school ground, shop front, waste land, roadside verge or roundabout enhanced with plants that produce nectar for feeding insects.
Support
There are various ways this grass roots process of awareness and behaviour change can be supported centrally with information about street trees, garden bird feeders, ponds, bee tubes, and garden plantings for pollinators. The necessary information and merchandise is readily available but there has been no concerted national effort to focus this plethora of resources and promote urban campaigns to embed and network these resources bottom-up into urban gardens run by individuals and communities. Because there is no example of the organisation that is required , the following diagram illustrates the kind of acitivities that have to be linked up to form an integrated network.
There are two basic elements to make a nectar point. The most important is to select nectar rich plants to grow in soil or a container according to the objective of the gardener. Three common objectives are to plant a 'nectar table', to make a 'clover lawn' or grow a narrow selection of nectar-producing plants to make seasonal and geographical comparisons with other growers using the same plant assemblage. The second important element is to keep a record of the outcomes of planting and any monitoring of pollinators that is done.
1 Turn your garden into a 'nectar table'.
Fill up your garden with as many plants as possible chosen from the R.H.S.'nectar plant' list.
2 Make a 'clover lawn'
A lawn with white clover in it is traditionally regarded as a sign of neglect. In other words the owner is not treating it with respect as a grass monoculture. Yet clover-rich lawns are a rich source of nectar. Why not cultvate your lawn for its clover, or any other kind of 'weed'? This is the basis of rethinking the traditional grass lawn.
https://blogs.reading.ac.uk/grass-free-lawns/rethinking-the-traditional-grass-lawn/
3 Add 'bee anthometers' to your garden.
http://www.amnh.org/learn/biodiversity_counts/ident_help/Parts_Plants/parts_of_flower.htm
An 'anthometer*' is an invention of Pembrokeshire teachers. It refers to a particuar nectar rich plant that is easy to grow and propagate in the form of a shrub and/or a perennial garden plant, grown in soil or a container. Each anthometer flowers at a particular time during the year, and reliably from year to year. Anthometers are used to make long-term biological checks on the local environment which are expressed in year to year variations and trends. A collection of anthometers constitutes a nectar point. The idea is to maintain a 'flower station' analogous, and complementary, to a 'weather station'. The anthometers may also be used for experiments on factors which affect growth and reproduction of nectar producing species (phenology), to learn about biogeography, and study gardening as an important cross-cultural expression of human social development.
In an urban environment, a container-garden may be the only option. Setting up an anthometer in a pot offers great scope and versatility for integrating recording with experimentation. It is also advantageous to grow plants in containers when making geographical comparisons because the growing medium can be standardised. However, container growing is not simply a matter of thrusting garden plants in pots and expecting them to thrive. As the plants are grown in a limited amount of soil, with their roots confined, they have special requirements. Suitable species must be chosen initially, as some tolerate this restriction better than others. Taking these limitations into account, a calendar of anthometers may be established with potted plants and used to check out flowering times of species, and/or named varieties, from early spring to autumn, with measurements of local weather. These activities have to be linked with a long-term management plan to care for the plants, and a database for recording and transmitting results.
* Named after 'anther' the structure of a flower containing pollen.http://www.amnh.org/learn/biodiversity_counts/ident_help/Parts_Plants/parts_of_flower.htm
A collection of plants suitable for this kind of work is described in the 'Plants for 3 Seasons' sub page.
4 Keep a diary of what you do
Whether you are an individual or a group, joining the nectar point network simply entails communicating what you are doing and what you have achieved via a blog, a website or your favourite social networking site. Communicating by making nature diaries has a long and distinguished history as the following account of Gilbert White's network of 18th century naturalists.
"In 1767 Gilbert White visited London and met Thomas Pennant, who wrote books on birds and mammals. Pennant recruited Gilbert to provide information for his books, and when Benjamin White printed for Daines Barrington a set of weekly forms entitled The Naturalist's Journal, it was probably Pennant who suggested to Barrington that he send a set to Gilbert. Each form had columns for date, temperature, barometer, rain, weather, trees first leaf of the year, plants first flower, animal observations, and miscellaneous observations. Barrington had designed a form to collect phenological data before this area of research was named; at the time, it was part of natural history. The value of Barrington's forms was that they were both comprehensive and standardized. Data from observers in different places was comparable. In January 1768 Gilbert expanded the scope of his recordings beyond that of his Garden Calendar, using Barrington's forms, until his death in June 1793.
In 1751 Gilbert's sister, Anne, married Thomas Barker, grandson of astronomer-mathematician William Whiston, who had succeeded Isaac Newton as Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University. Thomas grew up in a house where science was taken seriously, and he made his first weather records at age 11, in 1733. Three years later he began recording the weather daily and continued to do so for the rest of his life. His annual records were published in the Royal Society of London's Philosophical Transactions from 1749 to 1800. Gilbert White's biographer Rasleigh Holt-White owned Thomas Barker's nature diary (now lost) that included, besides weather data, the first appearance and disappearance of migratory birds and the breaking into leaf and flowering of trees at his home, Lyndon, for the years 1736-1801. In 1768 White sent Pennant a copy of Barker's diary for the previous 32 years, with Barker's permission to use his data".
Several factors converged to stimulate White to write his natural history of his village of Selborne. In spring 1770 Barrington suggested that Gilbert write an account of Selborne's animals. Furthermore, after Pennant recruited Gilbert to provide information for his books, it occurred to Gilbert that another of his brothers, John, who was a clergyman serving as chaplain at the Rock of Gibraltar, might provide information for Pennant. Gilbert wrote 14 letters to John, September 1769-March 1772, of advice on natural history studies, collecting specimens, and keeping a daily journal, and he sent John natural history books for guidance.
An electronic diary, called 'Advanced Diary' is recommended for those who wish to take part in the Nectar Point Network as digital communicators of their nature diaries.
Calendars of Flora
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33668/33668-h/33668-h.htm#page201
See the following for more practical ideas: