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Last updated on July 5th, 2024 at 01:21 pm
The photo was taken by me (Vanessa)
Post originally posted March of 2017
I wanted to take some time to talk about a project I’ve been a part of for nearly 10 years now. I stumbled upon it by accident really but once I saw how helpful it could be I opted to sign up.
The Great Sunflower Project is free to join and it allows you to plant sunflowers or other flowers listed by the project. The main point of it is to help the bee populations all over the US and Canada thrive.
Once you create your free account you can evaluate the area you will use to observe the bees. It’s very simple and gives you examples of size and layout.
Here’s an example of what I mean from a screenshot of my own account:
So you follow the steps adding your yard size and follow the prompts. once you are done you are given this final assessment. It outlines things ou can do to improve bee visitation to your yard.
Adding a count is simple. All you do is watch a flower for as long as you like or multiple plants in one observation time.
Here some examples from my own account to show you what the steps look like.
The nice part is now you can type in the type of plant you are observing. When I joined I was only able to observe Lemon Queen Sunflowers.
As you can see from this print screen you can observe many other insects and even birds as well. If you don’t see any of the insects or birds listed you can check off no pollinators seen as well.
The best part is that all the data that is submitted by people helps track the activity of bees in areas across the US. At the end of the season, you are sent an email that maps bee activity. It’s quite interesting. You can also explore more on the website. They offer a lot of great info about pollinators and how to attract them to your garden.
So if you’d like to join please visit the link below. Again it’s free to join and the money you will spend is for the cost of flower seeds. I was able to find some Lemon Queen sunflower seed packets at my local Dollar tree along with my local Dollar General for about 33 cents a package. Of if you prefer you can plant find native plants that attract pollinators in your area.
If you do sign up let me know.
http://www.greatsunflower.org/
