Ruud Kleinpaste: Attractive colours and pollinators

Most gardeners are aware that certain plants appear to be great for pollinators. Pollination is important for the reproduction of plants, and it comes in many different ways. We often just sit and watch the spectacle unfold as we have a cup of tea in front of our shed. 

Pollination is done through ABIOTIC ways: (wind movements) or through BIOTIC techniques (Mostly insects: bees, flies, butterflies, moths, beetles and birds). It makes sense that early flowering plants rely on early pollinating insects. Dandelions are a good example; they often use small native bees to do the job.   

By the way, about one-third of New Zealand’s plants are wind-pollinated (think grasses and the various plants that cause hayfever). 

Here’s a line-up of all sorts of pollinators in the group of insects. For the flowers pollinated by insects, especially bees, it’s interesting to note that they have different colour vision to humans. Blue, green, violet and ultra-violet are the key colours.    

The blue flowers that will certainly bring in the pollinators are Ageratum, Chatham Island Forget-Me-Not, Cornflower, Delphinium, Echinops, and Eryngium, with standards such as Salvia, Phacelia, Campanula and Tweedia. 

When birds are getting involved in pollination (just under 10%), you’ll find that Tui and Bellbirds are often at the front of the line, with silvereyes waiting for their turn.   

Kowhai, Flax, Rata species, and special recipients of bird beaks, such as Kaka Beak and Mistletoe are the lure for birds.   

Bellbird and tui with orange pollen and red flowers

While most insects see things in blue, violet, and ultra-violet spectrum, birds see red and yellow. 

Blackbirds also see red flowers: They love to “cause trouble” in the Feijoa trees with heaps of red flowers by violently ripping the flowers to pieces…   

The most efficient way to pollinate the crop of feijoas!!!  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame podcast
from News Talks at b.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Ah Man in the Gardener's Rude Climb past. How are
you good?

Speaker 3 (00:19):
Thank you? Have you seen any pollinators yet at your place?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Ah? I think I've said a few pollinators. Sort of
sounds likely euphimistic when you put it on those terms,
doesn't it.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
But yes, yeah, I know, I know it was nearly
off of whatever it was nearly off.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah, I know things. It has to be said. Things
are going very well at the at the in the
Tame Garden at the moment, not very well. They're never
going very well, but they're going reasonably well. And then
everything is flowering, except I've got this weird situation, right.
So I've got a jackaranda tree, and you know the
jacaranda trees just grow like anything, right, So I've got
a jacaranda tree and it's flowered. So I've got all

(00:56):
the beautiful purple flower but for some reason, about two
thirds of the tree has no none of its green foliage.
So after winter, the green folie just didn't come back.
So it's just kind of beer. It is very stronge.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
I wonder what happened that. Oh god, that could be
all sorts of troubles to be quite.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Honest, I know. But but but the things that don't
have the green foliage have no that they had flowers,
so it's very it's very weird.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yeah, yeah, no, there might that might be something to
do with your root zone at underneath you know that
it doesn't get the feeding through that particular path. It
might be just something like that. That's really hard. I
really need to go and see that one day and
see what happens, because it could be a dieback, I suppose.
But anyway, yeah, this is it and a lot of
plowns are at the moment flowering as you as you

(01:43):
can see. And it's interesting because I started doing a
bit of research of this whole. If you like stuff
that you do with these pollinators, and sometimes you do
a biotic or sometimes biotic pollination, and and a biotic
has to do with wind movements so that the wind
actually does the pollination. But what I'm talking about, of course,

(02:05):
on my favorite lugs you know, you name it, butterflies
to bumblebees, to flies, to beetles. There's an incredible amount
of pollinators in everybody's garden and they are doing so well,
and I love that sort of stuff, So that's number one.
But when you're yeah, yeah, but when birds are getting

(02:28):
involved in pollinating, they are not really looking for bluish plants,
if you like, They're looking more for reddish flowers because
they can see red a lot better than insects. Insects
sea blue rights. It's a really cool way to look
at these things. So only ten of birds, only ten

(02:51):
percent of the pollinators are birds. That's not that much
if you think about it. But if you look at
tui and bell bird and things like that, and silver ice,
those are the ones that are doing the gig and
you know with co five flax, right and all that
sort of stuff. That's how it works. And what's really
interesting is, and this is one of the things I
want to tell people, when you see, for instance, blackbirds

(03:14):
having a go in your Fijoa trees, it looks as
if the blackbird goes for those red Fijoa trees flowers
and totally destroys them. It's not. They do the most
efficient way of pollinating there.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
You are, of course, of course, because you mean to
partnot with the jos. You're right, okay, oh, very good.
Thank you Sir. Rou Climb passed in the garden for
us after eleven o'clock. If you're in the garden

Speaker 1 (03:41):
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