A bit of progress on neonics

This week I planted a sunflower that I’d bought at Home Depot. My reason for shopping at a big box store instead of a local garden center was the progress Home Depot has made toward phasing out neonicotinoid insecticides from their plant offerings.

Sources of neonic-free plants can be hard to find

    Thanks to a campaign by Friends of the Earth and others, Home Depot yielded to pressure and promised that plants they sold would be neonic-free by 2019. Neonics are systemic pesticides that are used to promote growth and keep plants on retail benches looking fresh and unchewed. The problem is that they also kill or disable bees and other pollinators.

Neonics can kill bees that visit treated plants

     Once a seed or plant has been treated, neonics persist in plant tissues for years and can even be transmitted to nearby plants through soil and water contamination. In 2014, Friends of the Earth found neonics in more than half of bee-attracting commercial nursery plants bought at a broad sample of garden centers and big box stores in the United States and Canada. 

    As they worked on purging neonics from their supply chain, Home Depot took the interim step of labeling neonic-treated plants they sold. 

Home Depot's spin on neonic labeling

They got some negative responses to this practice, because it raised awareness of the danger. Meanwhile, other sellers continued selling treated plants without the warning. This year Home Depot says that 98 percent of the plants they sell are untreated. They attribute the remaining 2 percent to state regulations requiring neonic treatment of certain plants. 

    Meanwhile, I’ve failed totally at growing sunflowers from seed in my garden. When I plant seeds, something bites off the seedlings as they emerge. I imagine this is a squirrel who likes the taste of sunflower sprouts. I’ve tried starting the sunflowers indoors and transplanting young seedlings to the garden. These young plants too have been irresistible to hungry wildlife. That’s why I decided to buy a husky sunflower whose stems are already tough enough to withstand squirrels’ teeth. 

    I bought what was offered: ‘Sunfinity,’ a hybrid that grows to only 3 feet and produces multiple 3- to 4-inch flowers through the season. This plant won’t offer seeds for the birds. It produces nectar for beneficial insects, but it’s sterile, with no pollen. 

Sunflower 'Sunfinity'

This is not the sunflower of my dreams. I’d envisioned something taller with a few dinner-plate-sized blooms packed with seeds. Planting so late, though, I’ve got a chance of seeing the flowers bloom.

    When I encountered the plant, it was showing some flowers. I took care of that by planting it in the vegetable bed, where something quickly bit off the young blooms. 

Stripped

 Undeterred, the plant put out some more buds that are now opening. I imagine that this back and forth will continue into the fall.

Trying again

    I wish Home Depot offered some unhybridized sunflowers, straight Helianthus annuus. Those would do more for pollinators and birds in the garden. But I’m glad to know that my Sunfinity is neonic-free. There’s no point in a pollinator garden that kills pollinators.

First do no harm