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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23, 2022
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Should I wait to clean up the garden
in order to help conserve insects?
Gail Langellotto
Oregon State Extension Service
Is this statement fact or fiction?
“Wait to clean up your garden until tem-
peratures consistently reach 50 o F or
higher, in order to help conserve in-
sects.”
The claim:
Many butterflies, bees and other pol-
linators overwinter in the dead leaves
and hollowed out stems of last year’s
plants. If you clean your garden prema-
turely, you will literally be throwing
away this year’s butterflies, bees and
other beneficial pollinators.
The verdict: Mixed
Terrestrial insects overwinter in a va-
riety of habitat types that can be gener-
ally classified as:
h Protected: beneath the soil.
h Partially exposed: within vegeta-
tion or underneath leaf litter.
h Exposed: above the ground, on veg-
etation or other surfaces.
It is true that if you destroy an in-
sect’s habitat while it is overwintering,
that it is highly unlikely to survive into
the next season. However, the typical
maintenance and cleanup tasks for
spring gardens (such as pruning berries
in March or cutting back ornamental
grasses in April) are unlikely to broadly
harm insect pollinators, with the possi-
ble exception of cavity-nesting bees.
Soil nesting bees
Across the globe, most bee species
nest in protected sites beneath the soil.
For gardens located within ultra-urban
landscapes, such as New York City, less
than half of all bees are soil nesters. In
more suburban gardens, a majority of
bees are soil nesters.
For most gardens, unless you are till-
ing the soil as a spring garden chore
(which we don’t advise, due to the nega-
tive effects of soil tilling on soil struc-
ture), most bee species should not be
harmed by spring garden chores.
Cavity nesting bees
In urban gardens, bees that nest
above ground in stems and other cav-
ities are more common than they are in
non-urban sites.
One of the most common bees (about
10%) of the 2,100 specimens that we
found in Portland-area gardens is the
small carpenter bee, Ceratina acantha.
This bee nests in pithy stems, including
native and cultivated Rubus (caneberry)
Millions
Continued from Page 1A
biggest challenges for its completion is
costs. The development is receiving $1
million to pay for infrastructure costs
like water, electricity, sewer, roads and
sidewalks for the entire development.
“Without this funding, we would
have a substantial delay in construction
while fundraising to cover the cost,” said
North Willamette Valley executive di-
rector Kari Johnsen.
“Our goal is to raise enough money to
build five homes per year, and have the
estimated $2.1 million project complet-
ed at the beginning of 2026. We have a
long way to go to raise enough money to
complete the project, but our goal is to
keep construction going and get fam-
ilies into homes as soon as possible.”
Johnsen said the cost of materials for
building homes has skyrocketed to
$250,000 per home from $100,000 in
the past year.
The money from the federal govern-
ment helps to keep the project moving
forward.
“The funding that Senators Wyden
and Merkley helped secure is making
this project possible,” Johnsen said.
Among the appropriations in the bill
are:
$34.8 million for the Army Corps of
Engineers to build fish passages at dams
in the Willamette Valley, including De-
troit and Cougar dams. The Corps of En-
gineers agreed to build the passages as
part of a legal settlement in 2008, but is
still in the design and engineering of the
projects.
$500,000 for the Detroit Lake Foun-
dation’s project to build a new commu-
nity center in Detroit. The previous city
hall was destroyed in the wildfires of
2020, and contractors have joined with
the foundation to construct the new
one, including using the gym from the
old Detroit High School.
$2 million for Center for Hope and
Safety’s HOPE Plaza Housing and an
economic development project.
$2 million for the Salem YMCA’s Vet-
eran Housing project.
$2 million for Brian’s Place, a pro-
gram through Mid-Willamette Valley
Community Action Agency.
$1.2 million for Mid-Willamette Val-
Does the timing garden clean-up affect bees? COURTESY OF OREGON STATE EXTENSION
and Sambucus (elderberry) species,
and many introduced species (includ-
ing Brassica, Daucus, Foeniculum an-
dRumex). Ceratina acantha is thus able
to nest in the pithy stems of across
many plant families (including carrots,
mustards, buckwheats, roses and elder-
berries), although they seem to prefer
stems that are 5–8 mm in diameter.
Research from Portland State Uni-
versity shows that these bees emerge in
April in the Portland metro region. Thus,
for cavity nesting bees in urban gar-
dens, waiting until May to clean up gar-
den debris that includes pithy stems
would allow any overwintering small
carpenter bees to successfully emerge
and start their own nests in the spring.
Temperature thresholds for insect
emergence?
I tried to find the source of the sug-
gestion that gardeners wait until it is
50oF or higher before cleaning up gar-
den debris. The closest suggestion that I
could find is a study of bat foraging in
Wisconsin. This study found that bat
foraging strongly coincided with insect
emergence in spring, which sharply in-
creased at 50oF.
However, it should be noted that 78%
of the insects captured in this study
were flies, and almost all of the flies cap-
tured were aquatic. These, obviously,
would not be disrupted by spring garden
maintenance, unless you are cleaning
and disrupting a garden pond or stream.
Butterflies
Although it is possible that urban and
suburban gardens offer suitable habitat
for butterflies, few studies have looked
at butterfly overwintering in different
types of garden habitat. Studies that
have counted butterflies in gardens
have found that the vast majority are
the ubiquitous, non-native cabbage
white butterfly, Pieris rapae.
This butterfly is reported to overwin-
ter in bark and crevices above the soil.
Thus, typical gardening cleaning tasks
are unlikely to harm the most dominant
butterfly in urban and suburban gar-
dens.
ley Community Action Agency to ac-
quire property for a veterans homeless
shelter.
$6.3 million for Salem Area Mass
Transit District to purchase zero-emis-
sion busses.
$1.4 million for improvements on
North Fork Road. Much of the road was
damaged in the wildfires, and it has
been closed to traffic since.
$1.2 million for public safety radio
system repairs and upgrades in a remote
area between Gates and Detroit.
$2 million for economic development
in the Opal Creek Wilderness.
$250,000 to Mano a Mano Family
Center for workforce development.
The over $5 million for housing for
veterans and homeless is hoped to make
an impact on the homeless population
in the area.
Mid-Willamette Valley Community
Action Agency executive director Jim-
my Jones said the COVID-19 pandemic,
Labor Day wildfires of 2020, ice storm of
February 2021 and heat dome of June
2021 have increased the number of
homeless people in the area.
“This investment will allow us to
keep our wildfire homeless sheltered,
and eventually take more than 100
homeless residents off the streets of Sa-
lem, reducing our unsheltered homeless
population by 10%,” Jones said.
Among the other appropriations
were $449,000 for an online profession-
al certification program for structural
engineers, focusing on building with
wood including mass timber, through
Oregon State’s College of Forestry.
It also continues funding for Oregon
State University’s program on forest
product innovation at $1 million per
year, including research on mass timber
products and building systems.
“Mass timber buildings have enor-
mous potential to replace more carbon-
intensive traditional construction in the
fight against climate change, all while
supporting local timber jobs and driving
the thinning projects which are critical
to forest resiliency and preventing
megafires,” Merkley said.
The University of Oregon also re-
ceived $800,000 for its center for re-
searching wildfire smoke.
Bill Poehler covers Marion County for
the Statesman Journal. Contact him at
bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com.
What you can do to conserve
garden insects
One of the best things you can do, if
you want to conserve insects in the gar-
den, is to set aside a portion of your gar-
den that is left unmanaged, as perennial
habitat.
HAR
OR K
W
D
H
The larger the space you are able to
set aside as unmanaged habitat, the
more insects you will be able to host in
your garden.
The larger the space you are able to
set aside as unmanaged habitat, the
more insects you will be able to host in
your garden.
Keep in mind, however, that habitat
set-asides will provide space for the in-
sects that are generally desirable in a
garden (such as pollinators), but may
also provide space for insects that are
less desirable (such as herbivores that
can become garden pests).
To learn more about how you can
protect pollinators in your garden, via
pollinator-friendly garden designs and
maintenance practices, check out En-
hancing Urban and Suburban Land-
scapes to Protect Pollinators. Experi-
ment, and do what works best for you.
The mere fact that you’re thinking
about and are aware of the importance
of insect conservation in the garden is a
huge step in the right direction.
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