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Celebrate Australia’s unique pollinators with Nature Blocks

Australian Pollinator Week (November 11–19) acknowledges our important and unique insect pollinators during our southern spring. It is a designated week when communities, businesses, and organisations can come together to raise awareness of the importance of pollinators and support their needs.

90 per cent of wild flowering plant species depend, in part, on the transfer of pollen by pollinators. As does 75 per cent of the world’s food crops. This means pollinator species are an important part of the planet’s biodiversity.

Like many species around the world, Australian pollinators are under threat from habitat loss, climate change, and the misuse of insecticides. Pollinators like native bees, birds, and even certain types of bats need flowers to survive, so one of the best things you can do to help them out is to create a pollinator-friendly Nature Block.

Pollinator highlight: The Blue-banded bee (Amegilla cingulata)

In Australia, we have about 2,000 native bee species that come in a rainbow of different colours, patterns, and sizes. The iconic, Blue-banded bee (Amegilla cingulata) is regularly seen in gardens across the country.

The blue-banded bee is a buzz pollinator, meaning it can move at incredibly high speeds and release tightly held pollen from flowers. European honeybees don’t have the same ability to ‘buzz’ native flowers as our blue-banded bee, making them very useful to our native landscape.

This is because many native Australian flowers require buzz pollination, such as the Hibbertia species of flowers.

Add an insect hotel to your Nature Block

One of the best ways you can attract more native insect pollinators to your Nature Block is to add an insect hotel.

An insect hotel is a collection of small hollows made from logs, sticks, clay, bamboo and bark. This is designed to provide shelter for native bees and other solitary insects, looking for a place to rest and lay eggs. Most species of native bees in Australia are solitary, which means just one female bee mates with a male, then builds an individual nest for her eggs.

If you’re just using one pot or can, you can tie a piece of jute around the can and hang it in a sunny spot, protected from the wind.

If your insect hotel has a weather-proof frame or roof, it can be placed out in the garden; if not, place it in a sheltered place such as on a verandah.

Planting a variety of indigenous plant species in your garden will attract pollinators to your Nature Block. The goal is to provide the best mix of plants and habitat for local wildlife.

You can find out what kind of plants our native species like by downloading the CVA Community Hub App and starting your own Nature Block.

Download our Nature Blocks plant guide: Australia-wide plant guide for Nature Block

We have step-by-step guide no matter where you live or your living situation.

Visit MyNatureBlock.org and download the app today.

Let’s BUILD BACK NATURE.

 

 

Nature Blocks is proudly supported by the Bupa Foundation.