Bee Good Plants

Bees and plants have evolved together, with some bees specializing in specific plants while others use a variety. Many lists of bee-friendly plants are not based on genuine observation or science, so it's important to be careful. Some plants that are good for all types of bees include echiums, borage, fiddleneck, verbena bonnarensis, cosmos, rosemary, and thyme. It's best to buy plants from organic nurseries to avoid pesticides. These plants can be grown from seeds and shared with others to increase bee-friendly areas. This is a section from a book called The Secret Lives of Garden Bees by Jean Verlon and I am going to read chapter 7 which is called Bee Good Plants. Bees and plants have evolved together over the millennia, and many have complex and intricate relationships. There are specialist bees that only feed on specific types of plants and there are generalist bees that use all manner of flowering plants to sustain their existence. A quick check on the internet will reveal lists and lists of plants that are good for bees, but these lists are massively overproduced and not always based on genuine observation or even science. If you aren't clued up about plants then lists can be very confusing and not that helpful. But there are some plants that are brilliant for all types of bees and when you are short on space or you want to give the bees a real feast and not just a light snack, these are some of the best ones to grow. Remember that the best plants to grow for your local bees will vary from place to place. If you have a large area to plant then spend a bit of time visiting gardens near you at different times of the year and pay attention to those that are bee magnets, for example plants that attract lots of bees. Use your ears as well as your eyes and home in on the buzz. I'm convinced the sound is healing, perhaps it resonates on a specific frequency, but whatever it is I am truly hooked. But remember that it's not as simple as going to the garden centre to buy plants for your bees. Unfortunately some plants available for sale have been pre-treated with systemic chemicals including the dreaded neonicotinoids to keep them free from pests and diseases and the really bad news is that the presence of these pesticides even in very small doses can and does affect pollinator health. The best way to avoid this is to use an organic nursery that grows plants without the need for pesticides. It's easier to find organic edible plants that we might eat, fruit, herbs and vegetables, but the demand for organic ornamental plants is growing. There are some specialist organic plant nurseries out there and even some that sell plants for bees. Seek them out and support them as they are making a difference. This gives you a greater choice of plant varieties and more plants for your money, so it's ideal for sharing and increasing the bee-friendly plants in and around your area. You can even share or give away excess seeds to make the very most of every seed in every packet. Take cuttings from bee good plants and share them far and wide. If you've got a great bee plant that can be propagated from, this is the ideal way to fill your garden with more bee plants and spread bee love by giving them as gifts to fellow gardeners. You don't have to tell them that it's a good plant for bees, just get them to plant it and the bees will come. There's one group of plants that are particularly good for bees. If I mention echiums, the chances are you'd imagine the great spires of Echium pinniniana that you might see on your holidays in Cornwall or the Isle of Wight, or in protected walled gardens around the UK. This echium is truly a stutter, but it's not fully hardy and it will not reliably overwinter in most UK gardens without some help. Each plant is tall and has thousands of individual flowers all at the flower spike that are really, really, really rich in nectar. The bees just love it and flowers for weeks and weeks. Look out for it at flower shows, there are one or two specialist growers. If you buy two year old plants they may flower the same year and create masses of bee food for your favourite insects. But the plants will die after flowering so it's essential to save seeds and remember that the resulting seedlings will take two or more years to flower. Echium World, an expert in these plants, advises that Echium pinniniana can take three to four years to flower. They dig them up for the winter and take them in to a protected cool glass house until the weather improves, protecting them with fleece in the coldest weather and unwrapping them on the sunnier days. But there is a winter hardy, UK native Echium that grows wild in some places and is commonly called Vipers Bugloss, Echium vulgaris. It's related to borage and grows wild in most of Europe on coastal cliffs, waste ground and dry calcareous grasslands and heaths. It's a biennial which means that when you grow from seed the first year the plant just grows leaves and gets a bit bigger and it doesn't flower until the summer of the second season. But your plants will sell seed all over the place each year, taking two growing seasons to reach maturing and flower. They will pop up in the gravel paths between the paving and all over the place. Great, pot them up, grow them on and plant them all around the garden. Vipers Bugloss flowers for months and is a magnet for all pollinators that collect the soft blue pollen and sugar-rich nectar. You can grow it in pots where the spires of rich blue flowers will fountain over the edges and look beautiful. Borage is an amazing plant for bees. It's an annual herb worthy of any garden and the pretty blue flowers are great for summer. The reason it's such a good bee plant and so popular with the little buzzers is because its flowers replenish their nectaries regularly every two minutes or so. So it's an open all hours nectar bar with generous supplies of the sugary nectar and this makes the flowers a magnet for bees all summer. Grow borage from seed but once you've got it it will sell seed around the garden. Look out for seed of white flowered borage which is a pretty alternative. Fiddleneck is an amazing blue-flowered annual that is a fantastic plant for bees. It is usually grown as a green manure which means that the plants are sown over bare soil after crops have been harvested and then cut back and dug into the soil to feed and condition the soil in spring. It's a great green manure because it grows fast and germinates in cold weather but for best results it is dug back into the soil before it flowers. That's no good for the bees and other pollinators that simply love its flowers. If you want to grow it for the bees then sow the seed into a generous patch of bare soil in a sunny spot any time from spring to autumn and let it grow and flower. Its soft mauve blue flowers are rich in pollen and nectar and if you look closely at foraging bees you will notice the blue pollen balls that they collect from these flowers. Verbena bonnareensis, purple top, is a great choice for gardens and for bees. It has airy see-through stems with purple flowers that mingle perfectly with other border perennials. A good strong clump of verbena will bear tufts of tiny flowers all clustered together in an easily accessible mass creating a landing pad atop the tall wiry stems. This doesn't seem to put off huge bumblebees that cling to the swinging mass of flowers, supping from each individual bloom until almost drunk from that nectar. It's a great pollinator plant and is also a butterfly magnet and will attract a wide variety of these beautiful ethereal creatures. Leave the seed heads on the plant at the end of the summer for this plant is yet another of the great self-seeders, spreading itself widely into gravel paths and nooks and crannies and of course into the garden soil. It's widely available from nurseries, garden centres and plant sales so the easiest way to get these plants started in your garden or in pots and containers is to buy ready grown plants. But for the very best value for money these plants are really easy to grow from seed for lots and lots of plants which you can divide up and plant en masse in your garden. If there's one summer flower that you can grow easily, really easily from seed for the bees, there will also be a great cut flower and border stalwart, the cosmos has to be top of the list. It's the perfect flower for bees because it has that flat open dinner plate kind of daisy like flower with pollen and nectar rich centres and plenty of room for several bees to feed at the same time. These are great garden plants with masses of flowers from June to October and very popular with butterflies and bees. You can buy plants after the last frost in mid to late spring or buy a packet or two of seeds. Choose the easy to grow cosmos bipinartus in a mix of single open flowers and sow the seeds in mid April onwards into pots of good quality seed compost, sprinkling the seed thinly over the surface and covering with a thin layer of compost. Germinate in a frost free place and plant out after the last frost has passed. Rosemary This is one of my favourite herbs. First of all it is evergreen, keeping its leaves through the depths of winter. This means there are always rosemary leaves to add to your winter menus, make herbal tea and lift your spirits on the darkest days with its wonderful uplifting fragrance. Rosemary is also a really good bee plant. The nectar rich flowers are a magnet for spring bees searching for sustenance. In a sheltered spot rosemary plants can flower in late winter and early spring and sometimes in autumn and early winter too. This means it can provide vital bee food out of season. It loves a hot dry spot with well drained soil and unfortunately it can succumb to a hard winter so it is always worth having a few cuttings growing in a sheltered spot to replace any losses. Thyme When it comes to bees thyme is a very interesting plant. First it is a great source of nectar for our native bees and also for honey bees. It is also a very useful culinary plant, with leaves that are tasty and strong in flavour and used in a variety of savoury dishes. But thyme is also hailed as an extremely powerful medicinal plant. Renowned for its antimicrobial, antifungal and antiparasitic properties, thyme has a unique history as a heal-all plant. Thyme oil based products are even used by some honey bee keepers as a treatment for the varroa mite. It's a popular bee plant which you'll see as soon as it starts to flower. The tiny pink blooms are a magnet for bumble bees, butterflies and honey bees. Like the mint and it's from the same family, the short tubular flowers are accessible by most species of bees and the quality of the nectar is good. It's another summer flowering plant but is very low growing so it's ideal for pots and containers. Thyme is easy to grow and a great choice for a sunny spot on your patio or terrace.