Haskaps for Pollinators
One of the best components of a good pollinator garden/yard or farm is ensuring that there are plants for pollinators in as many seasons as possible. The hardest seasons to cover here in Ontario are early spring and late fall, when lots of plants aren’t in season yet or have already gone past their bloom time and are getting ready for winter.
Haskaps (aka honeyberries) happen to be wonderfully cold tolerant – both the plants and the flowers! Typically, the plants begin to bloom in late April, often a week or more ahead of dandelions. This means that haskap blossoms can provide early season nectar to hardy native pollinators such as bumblebees as well as to our kept honey bees.
Here in southern Ontario, the blooming of the dandelions is a seasonal indicator that the honey season is off to a good start, and the bees are no longer at risk due to lack of blooms to support spring hive growth. That is the reason I love growing haskaps: they bloom ahead of the dandelions, meaning that they can be a source of food for bees during a time when there really may not be much around!
Not only can haskaps provide early season food to bees, but when they’re grown with correct pollination partners (choosing two different haskap cultivars with the same bloom time is really important) you’ll also get the fruits of the bees’ labour in delicious haskap berries!
Thus, if you have space for a couple of bushes, I truly think Haskaps are a great option to consider for both yourself and pollinators.
This is a photo I snapped last spring at the Haskap bushes beside Silver Creek Nursery’s sales office - I gave them a copy of it as well so that they can share the Haskap love with their customers!
My favourite source of young haskap bushes is Silver Creek Nursery in Wellesley, ON, where they are sold as a dormant baby plant (1 or 2 years old) that you can order ahead for pickup or delivery in spring. I do recommend ordering ahead, so that you can get the correct pollination partners while they’re still in stock. Often they do run out of compatible cultivars before the end of the spring season, but you can order ahead in November/December for pickup or delivery the following spring! Silver Creek has a pollination chart for the varieties they carry so that you can choose good pollination partners.
You can also visit the Canadian Haskap Growers Association for lists of good pollination partners if you need to shop from a different nursery or are looking for a variety that Silver Creek doesn’t have.
Once planted, your baby Haskap will need some support during its first summer – keep the grass weeded away from it (consider mulching and compost to help feed it as well) and water during dry spells or weekly if needed so that it can get established. It’ll take a couple of seasons, but even in the 2nd summer you might see a few berries come along for you to sample – that is, if the birds don’t get them first and you’ve chosen good compatible cultivars for cross-pollination.
Once established, you can enjoy watching and listening as bees buzz among all the blooms of your very own Haskap bushes on a sunny April day!
From the bees to you, with love.