Pollinator Pathmaker

Buttercupdays

I've been having fun on another wet afternoon, playing with Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg's new algorithm. She is an artist who has tried to design a garden from a pollinator's perspective and has made the result available for all to try. Just enter some basic details and get a plan to suit them and you, watch it change through the seasons and, if you want to, download a planting plan.

Got some new ideas, but also pleased to find I am broadly on the right track. I think I would need to do more tweaking, as there didn't seem to be much that would be flowering here in the early part of the year, and it didn't take climate into account.

Fire

Do you ave a link? Thanks

Buttercupdays

Just type in the thread title and take it from there [ it only opened today!

Lyn

https://youtu.be/IN3YzdziqBY

Fire

https://pollinator.art/pathmaker

Lyn

I can’t get that one to work @Fire
try this one.
https://www.edenproject.com/visit/things-to-do/pollinator-pathmaker

JennyJ

It only works for a rectangular area . My back garden is a narrow triangle shape so I think the pathways would be quite different.

JennyJ

I tried it with a long narrow rectangle. Most of the plants that it came up with are things that I already have, and the planting style is pretty similar to mine too, so I guess I'm already doing something right :-)

Buttercupdays

I got that feeling too @JennyJ

It could be a fun thing to try for a season, and it will be interesting to see how it pans out at the Eden Project, but I have some reservations. One is that as I said, it doesn't take the garden location and climate into account. A sunny site where I am is not the same as a sunny site in Essex or Hampshire. I don't know whether all the plants suggested would prove hardy here.

The other caveat is that it doesn't seem to consider what plants need, only the pollinators. On one plan I got, cowslips and heather were surrounded by taller plants.The cowslip might cope, as it flowers early. but the heather would not have received much sun at all, nothing like its wild moorland habitat, and might not have flowered as well.

In a real border as opposed to an art installation we all know how some plants are keen to overstep the limits, while others take time to get established. Some of the smaller or more diffident ones wouldn't stand much chance without intervention by the gardener. In either case the pollinators could lose out.

Choosing patches instead of pathways and moving the controls towards bold and reducing the number of varieties did make for a more recognisable plan. It would be good to know why some specific varieties were chosen though. Would another Achillea or Phlox be equally good from a pollinator's point of view, if the gardener preferred a less disruptive colour scheme?

Obelixx

I think this looks interesting so thanks for the link @Buttercupdays.   I've printed off two variations after tweaking the mixes as I need some inspiration for a new long, curved border I want to plant for pollinators and thus also the swallows and house-martins and other birds.  Haven't read them yet but am hoping I already have many of them in my seed collection.

Interestingly, I could choose western France for my climate.  Maybe you should try putting in Belgium for yours to see if it changes your planting suggestions - cold wet winters and, usually, plenty of rain in summer too tho droughts are becoming more common. 

Fire

I get the sense the site is a bit of fun that is an offshoot of an art project.