An autochthonous flower garden that offers invertebrate pollinators optimal conditions for their life and development.

Polen is a sanctuary for pollinators, focusing on 24 varieties of melliferous wildflowers of our bioregion, adapted to low rainfall conditions (rainfed), a place where these pollinators, bees, wasps, butterflies and beetles, have a safe space for food and shelter.

Abundance and biodiversity, two patterns of nature, are represented here in this garden framed in our Arboretum Park, surrounded by organic orchards and fruit forest.

A place to venerate pollinators, as a key part of our ecosystem and in particular in our food. They work silently to promote life on this planet.

Polen is a sacred place, where native plants offer shelter and food to pollinators, beauty and abundance to all who visit.

OUR ACTIONS MATTER ^

Pollinators are crucial to ecosystems and to our food supply. Their populations are declining drastically, but big cities can help by raising public awareness of their importance and inviting them to create gardens that provide special refuge for pollinators, and everyone can contribute by creating a pollinator garden with native, insecticide-free plants. It does not matter its size, it can be in a window box, some pots in your window or a small patio, it is only necessary to include the plants that pollinators require for their diet and others where they can reproduce.

Pollen, was designed so that everyone can participate in this work, whether or not we have a garden at home. The project has a main sanctuary, where we have selected the best melliferous flowers of our climate adapted to the changes of the climatic emergency, from this sanctuary we cultivate and harvest the seeds that will be used in the "refuges".

The refuges are spaces that our foundation creates in different places of the city such as squares, parks, company gardens, school yards, etc.

Our project has 4 levels where to participate and cooperate:


Level one, our sanctuary in the Arboretum Park, the heart of the project.

Level two, the "guardians" of the pollinators. Spaces designed by the Foundation, in collaboration with "companies and institutions", shelters of 25 square meters where the best flowers are brought according to the location.

Level three, the "shelters" for pollinators. Co-created in a collaboration between the Foundation and "individuals" spaces of 10 square meters, in private gardens.

Level four, we can all be pollinators by sponsoring the creation of 1 square meter in the meadows and green spaces of our municipality, which the Foundation year after year sows and builds in green areas to generate niches and biological corridors.

We invite you to participate in POLEN,
as actively and spontaneously as you feel.
All sharing adds up and enriches.
For more information

THE IMPORTANCE OF NATURAL POLLINATION ^

Natural pollination consists of the transfer of pollen between the male and female organs of flowers without human intervention. That is, the pollen moves from the stamens to the stigma of the flowers, where it fertilizes their ovules, making possible the production of seeds and fruits. In this case, the plant reproduces by interacting with the so-called pollination vectors, which are animals or natural elements such as water and wind that transport the pollen from flower to flower and fertilize them.

Biotic or animal pollination, known as zoo-pollination, is essential for the balance of ecosystems, the United Nations (UN), estimates in its latest assessment report on pollinators, pollination and food production that almost 90% of wildflowers need it to reproduce.

This document, published in 2016, also states that the yield or quality of more than 75% of the world's major food crops depend in part on natural pollination. In addition, it is estimated that between 5% and 8% of global agricultural production is directly due to zoopollinization.

RISKS OF THE DISAPPEARANCE OF NATURAL POLLINATION ^

The international community is concerned about the decline of natural pollination. This is a reasonable fear because global agriculture increasingly needs pollinators to supply food: crops that depend on these animals produce 300% more crop today than five decades ago.

The extinction of pollinators could compromise our health, as we would lose the ability to grow vegetables, fruits or seeds - essential foods for maintaining a healthy diet - and the development of medicines, biofuels, fibers such as cotton or building materials such as wood would be harmed. Likewise, it would harm the development of medicines, biofuels, fibers such as cotton or construction materials such as wood, not to mention the great damage caused by the imbalance of ecosystems.