Pollinator’s Week June 17-23
Gachina Landscape is proud to participate in National Pollinator Week; a time to celebrate pollinators and spread the word about what you can do to protect them. The Pollinator Partnership initiated and manages the event. Pollinators are necessary to the ecosystem; they pollinate more than $15 billion worth of fruits, nuts, and vegetables a year, largely in California. There are 1600 native bee species in California. Please help them thrive—plant pollinator gardens, don’t use synthetic pesticides (dicamba, flupyradifurone, neonicotinoid), set up pollinator houses.
In 2017, the U.S. Senate unanimously approved and designated a week in June as “National Pollinator Week” and took a necessary step toward addressing the urgent issue of declining pollinator populations. Pollinator Week has now grown into an international celebration of the valuable ecosystem services provided by bees, birds, butterflies, bats and beetles.
Gachina Landscape is participating by:
- Ladybugs and butterflies were released at the Gachina Farm with employees on Tuesday, June 18th. The Farm is a 5,000 sq foot organic garden which produces ample harvest for Gachina employees and JobTrain culinary class.
- Donating caterpillar/butterfly kits to JobTrain (affiliate) and two clients’ pre-school facilities so children can learn about them and release them on that week. We will also include stickers and fact sheets with our donation.
The Gachina Plant Health Care (PHC) department will visit each of our branches to deliver stickers, fact sheets and pollinator houses to be distributed to clients and discuss National Pollinator Week with their teams.
Gachina Landscape has been protecting pollinators since 2006 when the Company started to offer 100% organic landscape maintenance service. The use of pesticides has been replaced by broadcasting natural predators and parasites, such as nematodes, lacewings and ladybugs, who do not cause harm to pollinators. Alternative methods are available for weeds removal, such as hand pulling, hula hoes and weed eaters so as not disturb native plants and grasses.
Over recent years, more and more emphasis has been directed in selecting native plants which by co-evolving with the native wildlife of our region, as preferred by the pollinators, as source of food, shelter and where to raise offspring.
Since 2014, Gachina’s Sustainable Landscape Department has been installing wildlife habitats, butterflies’ gardens, organic vegetable gardens and bees’ refuges.
Sustainable practices allow the pollinators’ population to thrive and for the public to be more aware of the importance of maintaining this delicate balance. Contact us today to see what you can do at your property to protect our precious pollinators through sustainable landscaping.
