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Native Plants in Moonlight: A Nighttime Pollinator Adventure

Writer's picture: Michelle Michelle

When was the last time you looked at your native plants in the moonlight?


A large butterfly on a native coneflower
Black Swallowtail on a friend's Purple Coneflower

When people think pollinators, they tend to picture bees and butterflies in a world of full color and bright sun. Many plants are evolved for pollination during the day, when their metabolism is revved up with sun energy. Some even sport ultra-violet markings which are invisible to us, but can be seen by pollinators only if illuminated by sunlight. This bright world of colorful butterflies and sun-soaked bees is the pollinator world we usually see, and we are tempted to assume it is the whole story.


But not so fast. Plants do not simply halt their lives when the sun sets. Many pollinators have adapted to life under the moon to avoid competition with those busy bees, or to dodge the birds that are themselves mostly active during the day. Native plants, with their tight ties to pollinators, have adapted nocturnal strategies to serve those nocturnal pollinators. Studies are showing that around 50% of pollination occurs at night, by the light of the moon, while bees and butterflies are sleeping.

Fifty percent!


That means your native plant garden is every bit as active at night as it is during the day. We just don't see it, because we are fond of sleeping at night. Even if we do happen to be on the night-owl part of the human spectrum, our eyes are not well-adapted to seeing details in low light, and it is difficult to take photographs, so much of the action goes unobserved. Consequently, nocturnal pollinators have largely been ignored by science and media. Within the last couple of years, however, studies proving the importance of nocturnal pollinators have come to light (ha!).


Explore the Mysteries Under the Moonlight

Moths Rule the Night

It turns out that moths rule! There are over 150,000 species worldwide, with 13,000 in North America, and most are nocturnal. Comparatively, North America hosts only about 4,000 species of bees, and a mere 700 species of butterfly. Of the moths that feed as adults (some have such short lives they don't bother to eat), many dine on nectar. It turns out nectar is as popular a high-energy food at night as it is during the day. While some species of flower reserve their floral resources for daytime, producing little at night or even closing their flowers to shut the buffet for the evening, others are open 24/7. Some even take a moth-centric strategy and stay closed during the day, opening as the sun sets or releasing bursts of evening fragrance to catch the attention of awakening pollinators of the night. While moths sip, they pollinate. Moths are textured in a way that easily catches pollen and they are effective pollinators. In fact, recent research shows moths are even more effective at pollination than bees!


Other Denizens of the Darkness

Moths, however much they dominate the night-flower scene, have plenty of compatriots in the search for nocturnal nectar. Beetles are ancient pollinators and often nocturnal. Some species of plant have flowers which remain adapted to suit beetles, such as Spicebush's lumpy flowers with nectar and pollen exposed to clambering insects, or the flower of Wild Ginger, which practically lays on the ground waiting for something to march right in. Fireflies often hunt insects for food, but they sip nectar and pollinate when not involved in bioluminescent displays. A few species of bee are nocturnal, and even little flyers like mosquitos pollinate by moonlight. Sweet little mosquito males exclusively sip nectar instead of blood. Even the females use nectar and similar sweets for energy; they only need blood to produce offspring. They transfer pollen as they sip, so add these little pests to your definition of pollinators. There is even a U.P. plant, Platanthera obtusata, the Blunt-leaved Orchid, that is exclusively pollinated by mosquitos!! (Reminder: don't spray your yard. Nature needs your mosquitos and sprays aren't effective anyway and... don't get me started.) Not that you need to garden for mosquitos, it just illustrates that there is more happening on the nocturnal flower scene that we generally suspect.


Going the Distance

Moths and their associates don't generally use pollen (that we know of), but the fuzzy bodies of moths carry it effectively, usually much farther than the pollen could be carried by bees tied to a small territory around a nest site. People sometimes worry that their little native plant garden is isolated in a sea of conventional yards. Moths are the answer, pollinating a wider range of species than bees, over a much wider distance. Many solitary native bees only forage within 500 feet of their nest site. Moths have no dedicated nest; they lay eggs wherever they find the appropriate host plants. Consequently, they can travel miles, or hundreds of miles, spreading pollen as they go. Some even migrate, traveling more than 1,000 miles a year, a feat every bit as impressive as the flight of the monarchs. The Pink Spotted Hawkmoth migrates from Central America to Michigan! (Southern Michigan, but still...). We are so used to disregarding moths that we didn't notice the movements of their populations until about 100 years ago, and then we thought they were just being blown around by the wind. Where moths go, they take pollen with them.


Don't Hate the "Worms"

What do you think of when someone says "moth"? A lumpy, fuzzy, boring brown pest? How about "apple"? Round, plump, shiny deliciousness? Apples only get that good because of moths. One study found that a significant percent, sometimes around 50%, of the pollination of apple tree flowers is done by moths. During part of the study, apple flowers were barricaded at night to prevent nocturnal pollination. The apple flowers which were deprived of nocturnal pollination were often not fully pollinated. Poor pollination can result in less fruit or small, misshapen fruit. Ironically, the pollinators observed in the study were mostly armyworm and variegated cutworm moths, generally scorned as pests. Those caterpillars apparently grow up to pollinate your fruit trees, so think twice before destroying the "worms". Many moths are strikingly beautiful and varied. Even if you can't bring yourself to go easy on the cutworms, most of the thousands of moth species do no harm to humans and deserve protection from pesticides just as much as bees. Better yet, garden for your new moth friends, just like you would for their flashy butterfly cousins or the famous bees. 


No Boring Moths Here:

Photos are mine unless noted, and reflect a tiny bit of the diversity of U.P. moths. The four pictures which aren't mine are moths I have seen here but didn't give me a good photo opportunity (it was dark!)




Gardening for Moths

Most Moon Gardens described on the internet focus only on people and our limited range of vision. Their advice is simply to plant white flowers that are easier for us to see at night. But why limit a Moon Garden to just us? Nectar is wonderful, and plants that offer the best nectar for nocturnal pollinators often have light-colored blooms or fragrances which please our senses on moonlit strolls, but like butterflies, moths and other less-recognized pollinators need a well-rounded garden. That means using native plants that offer leaves for moth and beetle larvae, and leaving the leaf litter, stems, and sticks that shelter adults during the day and pupa during the winter.


Moths specialize just like butterflies: most moth caterpillars can only eat certain native plants. Some of the best local native plants for growing moth caterpillars are goldenrods, wild sunflowers, wild rose family (including wild strawberry), oaks, willows, and trees and shrubs in the plum/cherry family. These are considered "keystone" pollinator plants - the plants that hold up the ecosystem they way a keystone holds up all the other stones in an arch. Without the keystone plants, moth reproduction is impaired because there is little for many of the species of caterpillars to eat, and the creatures that depend on moths as food, such as most songbirds, suffer decline. Support moths by using native plants in your landscaping, with as many keystone plants as you can, but don't stress; almost every native plant is eaten by at least one type of moth caterpillar.


The other way native plants can support moths is providing nectar that is available at night. Not all plants have nectar available at all times. They tend to offer rewards at certain times and in certain ways to attract their favored pollinators, to better ensure that their pollen gets to a plant of the same species. Signs that a plant provides nectar to moths include a light-colored or white flower, easier to detect in dim light. Some flowers, such as Evening Primrose, even stay closed during the day and open in the evening to reserve the nectar for their night pollinators. Another sign that a plant is meant for the night life is a scent that intensifies in the evening to lure awakening pollinators. You should definitely huff some Common Milkweed in the evening. It has a slight scent during the day, but one evening I was walking the dog back to the woods and I smelled the rich perfume of a thousand milkweeds. I ran around the field for some minutes, looking for the patch that I surely must have missed. It ended up being one single stalk of milkweed flower by itself in a field, perfuming the entire area with heady fragrance. If I was a moth, I would have been all over that plant.


Moon Garden Made Easy

After all I have been reading about the importance of moths, I wanted to put together a collection of our plants that would best support moths as well as please people during midnight strolls. Our new Moon Garden Kit is designed for average garden soil and full to part sun during the day and has a mix of plants selected to support moths and other nighttime pollinators. The flowers are either scented in the dark or easily visible in the moonlight, making your moon garden appealing for people as well as pollinators. Find your instant Moon Garden designed for U.P. pollinators of the night in our Garden Kit Collection, here. For more information, check out "Gardening for Moths: a regional guide, by Jim McCormac and Chelsea Gottfried." Replacing non-native landscaping with native plants, especially those that entrance the moonlight, will always pay off in richer habitat.




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