Taking Care of My Pollinators

It's difficult this time of year to have flowers to support my pollinators, to keep them interested enough in my yard to hang around until my Spring garden. The winter garden does not have many vegetables that require pollination, mostly greens and  root vegetables. And most flowering plants cannot survive both the occasional frost as well as the typical central Florida heat and humidity. But I do have a couple of species that work, and are low maintenance.

Borage grows great during Florida winters, I love the beautiful purple blooms and even the hairy leaves have visual interest.

Surprisingly the African Bush Daisy was not even fazed by the worst of the frosts in the 20's this winter.

But my best flowering plant for keeping the pollinators around is Broccoli that I let bolt and go to flower. I discovered this last winter unintentionally. I tried a sprouting variety of Broccoli called 'Pericicaba'. A sprouting variety does not put out just one big main head but several smaller sprouting heads. Unfortunately the 'Pericicaba' variety is not good for eating here in Florida as it bolts quickly in our warmer winters and goes to flower. So last winter I was just too lazy to pull them and discovered that the bees love the flowers and these plants were continuously covered in flowers.