{"id":79,"date":"2020-02-15T20:43:01","date_gmt":"2020-02-16T01:43:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/backyardwildlife.net\/?p=79"},"modified":"2020-02-15T20:43:06","modified_gmt":"2020-02-16T01:43:06","slug":"pollinators-dandelion-and-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/backyardwildlife.net\/index.php\/2020\/02\/15\/pollinators-dandelion-and-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Pollinators, dandelion and us"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Every one of us can support the natural world through acts as small as simply letting the grass grow, says Jane Memmott, the president of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britishecologicalsociety.org\/\">British Ecological Society<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the start of her presidency of the British Ecological\nSociety in early 2020, Memmott of the University of Bristol has been talking\nabout the importance of ecology to everyone\u2019s lives. She makes it clear how\nevery one of us can make a difference and how nature will return this favor\nmany times over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;\u201cThink about what you\nall had for breakfast,\u201d said Memmott, explaining that apples, marmalade on\ntoast, pumpkin seeds in your muesli and even your morning coffee all involved\ninteractions with pollinators before they got to your table. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it\u2019s not just pollinators providing vital services free\nof charge. She noted that there is an army of critters removing crop pests, and\nwithout dung beetles we\u2019d literally be in a terrible mess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After breakfast and you\u2019ve left your house, the trees you\nwalk past provide services like shade, pollution control and water regulation,\nnot to mention the pleasing beauty of them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Having a garden, an allotment, a balcony or even just a pot\nplant on your doorstep is an opportunity to support nature by providing food\nfor bees, hoverflies and butterflies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She has a few simple pollinator-benefitting rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When choosing flowers, go for single flowers over double\nflowers. There\u2019s nothing for pollinators to eat in plants bred to look like pom\npoms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pollinators need food February through November, so try have\nsomething flowering throughout the year, or make sure you neighbors do when you\ndon\u2019t. Working as a street can achieve more than one garden. It\u2019s the start and\nend of the season when pollinators most struggle to find nectar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Learn to love weeds. Dandelions are fantastic for early\nseason pollinators. By leaving lawns to grow to ankle height, daisies,\ndandelions and clovers all get a chance to flower.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Every one of us can support the natural world through acts as small as simply letting the grass grow, says Jane Memmott, the president of the British Ecological Society. At the start of her presidency <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/backyardwildlife.net\/index.php\/2020\/02\/15\/pollinators-dandelion-and-us\/\" title=\"Pollinators, dandelion and us\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":89,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,10],"tags":[12,13,11],"class_list":["post-79","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-backyardhabitat","category-weeds","tag-dandelion","tag-habitat","tag-pollinators"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2e51B-1h","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/backyardwildlife.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/dandelion.jpg?fit=1280%2C853&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/backyardwildlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/backyardwildlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/backyardwildlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backyardwildlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backyardwildlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/backyardwildlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80,"href":"https:\/\/backyardwildlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions\/80"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backyardwildlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/backyardwildlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backyardwildlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backyardwildlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}