Native Pollinators in Your Garden FLOWER FLIES Flower flies are also called Hoverflies or Syrphid flies. These flies are usually colorful and often mimic bees and wasps. They can be important pollinators for some plants, but they are also beneficial in other ways. The larvae of many species are prodigious eaters of many soft-bodied plant pests like aphids and scales. So don’t spray anything on those aphids on your Milkweed plants, or even wash them off with soap. Leave them so that hungry flower fly larvae can eat them. GREEN SCARAB BEETLES Beetles were some of the first insects to evolve as pollinators for plants. Fossil records show that beetles were plentiful during the Mesozoic, about 200 million years ago. But they were not very efficient or sophisticated at doing the job, so they pollinated plants with a simple flower structure and that were large and often bowl-shaped, like Magnolia blooms. They also like plants with clusters of small flowers like Goldenrod or the Arrowwood shrub pictured here. The flowers are usually white or pale in color and have a strong fruity or spicy fragrance. Beetle flowers also have copious amounts of pollen, but not much nectar. Beetles that visit flowers include Soldier Beetles and Flower Scarabs, like the Green Scarab beetle here. LARVA If you don’t know what it is, a Flower Fly larva doesn’t look like much. One of the many joys of a pollinator garden is examining your plants closely to discover the life therein. Flower Fly on Turkey-Tangle Fogfruit (Phyla nodiflora), an excellent native groundcover. Green Scarab Beetle, dusted with pollen, working on flowers of Arrowwood (Viburnum dentatum). CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: BOB PERTERSON, TARYN EVANS, TARYN EVANS 10 GUIDE FOR REAL FLORIDA GARDENERS FALL 2016-2017 FANN / Florida Association of Native Nurseries
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