Flowers. Which Flowers can you plant in your garden to help bees? A planting list with photos.
80To attract bees to your garden you will need plants in flower for the months from - March to September. The bees need nectar which feeds the adult bees and the pollen is collected to feed the young.
This article includes a list of plants and flowers that are popular with bees with suggestions as to the ideal spot in the garden to plant them.
some bees like plants that have tubular shaped flowers..such as this Penstemon..
List of Flowers to plant for bees.
Flowers that bees like to visit...
Aquileiga, astilbe,aster
bluebells, bugle,
catmint, cornflowers, campanula, coneflower/echinacea
daffodil,dahlia, delphinium,
forget-me-nots,foxglove,fuchsia,
geranium, hellebores penstemon, potentilla, pulmonaria
sea hollies (eryngium),scabious, sedum ,snapdragon, stachys,
thrift, verbascum, verbena
Other plants that are good for attracting bees:
Buddleia, cardoon,comfrey, fennel, globe thistle, heather, lavender, thyme and teasel.
Crab apple, flowering cherry, flowering currant,
hawthorn,pussy willow, rhododendron.
Bees also like Lavender, Thyme and Rosemary plants
these herbs are plants that are easy to grow.
Lavender, Thyme and some types of Rosemary can be grown in containers on patios and decks. These herbs also have a pleasant smell and can also be used in recipes.
Copyright notice: The text/words here are mine and they may not be used without my consent.
Flowers for bees useful planting facts acts.
Flowers for Bees.
Planting - choices:
To help bees and other pollinator insects, like butterflies, you need to provide a range of plants that will provide a succession of flowers, this will make pollen and nectar available through the whole of the growing season.
It is important to provide flowers from March to September.
It is a good idea to have at least two or more nectar/pollen-rich plants in flower through out this time.
Nectar feeds the adult bee, pollen is collected to feed the young.
Bees favour single flowers over doubles.With double flowers the many petals make it more difficult for the bees to collect the nectar and pollen
Some bees like feeding from these plants with tubular-shaped flowers such as:
Foxgloves, snapdragons, penstemons, heathers.
Finding favourable planting postions for your flowering plants for bees and pollinating insects:
When planting your bee favourite flowering plants remember to put them in a area sheltered from strong winds and if possible in a sunny location in the garden.
Shrubs.
Good choices of shrubs would be buddleias, Japanese quince, hebes and winter-flowering honeysuckle.
For gardens with acid soil,plan to plant heathers and heaths (erica). Some are winter flowering.
Phacelia...a popular plant with bees...
A Green Manure Plant That Bees Love to visit.
Green Manure is a plant that you grow to improve the soil.
Green Manure is sown on empty land and is used between growing vegetable crops in your fruit and vegetable garden. It is beneficial to the soil and is useful to add humus to the soil .
Purple Tansy/Lacy Phacelia -
Phacelia tanacetifoliais a more elegant plant than the more common Phacelia campanularia grown in gardens. It reaches a height of a foot or more, has ferny leaves and stems which are rough and slightly hairy. It bears clusters of pale mauve or blue flowers, with very long stamens,and is a good for bees to visit.
phacelia attracts polliantors to the fruit and vegetable garden,
Marigolds.
Helping Bees by planting flowers in the garden.
Even a small area planted with flowers will be useful to the local bees population.
Native plants are more attractive to native bees than exotic flowers.
In a garden,heirloom varieties perennials or herbs such as thyme can be a good source of foraging for the insects such as bees.
Flower colors that seem more attractive to bees are violet, white, blue, purple and yellows.
Plant one type of flower species in a patch or clump; one species will attract more than seperate plants scattered about in the garden.
Diversity in the flower garden is good as there are lots of different types of bee, some specialise in visiting one type of flower.
Most bee though feed on a range of plants. If you have plants flowering through spring, summer and autumn you can attract and help different bee species.
Don’t use pesticides in your garden - bees are vulnerable when visiting gardens where they are used.
Some bees like tubular shaped flowers such as this foxglove
- The Bumblebee Conservation Trust
Dedicated to conserving the UK's bumblebees. Learn about their amazing lives, identification and how to help them in gardens, farmland and the wider landscape.
Here is the link to an informative article about the decline in the bee population ...
- THE PLIGHT OF BEES-A THREAT TO WORLD FOOD.
The honey, bumble, and other species of these humble yet most industrious insects are declining rapidly, so much so, that the U.K. Government has, to their credit, given Ten billion pounds towards research...
- Identifying bumblebees | Plant features | Plants | BBC Gardeners\' World
Identifying bumblebees, learn to identify bumblebees in your garden.
another article that describes the problems bees are suffering from
- The plight of the bumblebee
"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years left to live."- Albert Einstein. Incredible to think that the fate of mankind lies in the hands of a small insect...
link: short video on how a bees life begins...
Poem about bees for young children
A poem to help children understand the importance of bees.
Poetry about bees for children.
Do we need bees
busy little buzzy bees?
Yes,we all need bees.
Buzzy little bees.
Yellow and black striped
with pollen baskets
on their knees.
Do we need bees
busy little buzzy bees?
Why do we need bees
Busy little buzzy bees?
Bees visit our gardens
they help to make
next years flowers grow
by visiting the flowers
they make seeds
that we can sow.
Do we need bees
busy little buzzy bees?
Yes, bees are very busy
when the blossoms on the tree
by visiting the flowers
they help make the fruit
grow for you and me.
Thank you busy little bees.
link: a video for children about bees making honey.
- Why the great buzz about bees? - Telegraph
Our favourite insect is in decline. But, says Ian Douglas, we shouldn't ignore other, less charming, pollinators that play an equal role in our food production.
A page about Lavender...
- Lavender
Lavender, which is native to the Mediterranean region, is a genus of flowering plants. Technically, it belongs to the mint family and has 39 species. Of all these species, the English Lavender is considered...
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Thank you D.A.L. I look forward to reading your hub article and it would be great if you could refer to this one. Watching bees when they alight on flowers fascinates me, they are so engrossed in the task. The patch of phacelia that I grow on the allotment is always a very popular spot for the bees. Thank you for reading and leaving a comment too.
I have those tubular shape flowers in my garden but of orangish shade. If mine are not the same, they are very very similar. They attract a lot of bees. And this year I saw a new kind of bee that I have never seen or heard of before. These new ones are really large in size.
The flowers in the picture are Penstemons and they are popular with the bees in my garden. I like Penstemons because they come in a wide colour range and a not too tall or untidy to grow in a small garden. the link to the bumblebee conservation site has pictures of different types of bees on one of its pages. I think these will be more use to gardener's in the UK though so I will try to find a site for bee identification in the USA and add a link here to it.
Today the bees are busy in the lavender plants that are in flower and the flowering ornamental sage is another favourite of the local bees. I will add a link here to your lavender HubPage as it will be useful to readers of this page. We do get one or two hoverflies but I think I need to plant more plants that they like as hoverflies are also very helpful to gardeners.
Thank you for reading and leaving a comment, I will look for a link to bee identification and add it here.
Excellent article. Very interesting.
Thank you for reading this and leaving comment here, bees are fascinating to watch as they visit the flowers in the garden.
I never thought of planting flowers to help bees. Thanks to this hub. I learned a lot.
Thank you HomerMCho,
as well as flowers, I grow vegetables and fruit and this has made me aware of how important bees are to use in the garden. Our bees in the UK are vulnerable today more than in the past and I like to think that helping them is good for them and us as they do such a useful job in pollinating the fruits and flowers that we grow.
D.A.L. 23 months ago
2uesday, hi, this is an informative hub and your timing on how to attract , thus help bees is perfect. There are many things going on right now to try and discover the causes of the bees demise. Hoping to do a hub about it soon I will refer readers to this hub. Well done!