I recently added a load of "bee-friendly" high nectar plants to my garden. Until recently we thought it had been unsuccessful, and wrote it off as a failed experiment. Fast forward a couple of weeks and we suddenly couldn't walk a few meters without spotting at least 7 or 8 bees of various different species (both hive and solitary) buzzing around the place. It's been wonderful, and I've recommended all my friends who are into gardening to try it out. We've also had some new insects and bird species move in, along with a family of hedgehogs!
If anyone else would like to outfit their garden with some more bee friendly plants, we've had great luck with the following:-
-Himalayan balsam
-Yellow water iris
-Gladioli
-Common comfrey (Makes great fertilizer, and attracts some unique species)
-Blackberry
-Hedge bindweed
-Honeysuckle (Smells amazing!)
-Sweet pea
-Foxglove
-Rhododendron
-Lavender
-Bluebells (Good food source for early spring)
-Clovers (Bees really have really taken a liking to these)
-Greater knapweed (Super hardy)
-Hellebore (Late flowerer, so great to keep them running over winter!)
-Viper's bugloss
-Wood anemone
Most of these are common meadow plants that take little to no effort other than seeding them. Throw them down, cover with grass trimmings, mulch or compost and you're ready to go. This particular list is ideal for a mild, wet climate like the UK. Feel free to modify it depending on your wants and needs!
Plant seeds tend to travel far and wide with birds and animal migratory patterns. What takes root is dependent on soil, climate, etc. Meaning, what’s native is less dependent on location and more on conditions.
As climate changes, conditions change, and so the set of plants best suited to any particular location changes as well.
Plant ranges are migrating due to climate change. For species that are native to areas close enough to be introduced naturally invasive is not a useful definition.
Some native plants can handle that kind of temperature change better than others. I wish there were a database of plants that are both native and climate resilient for different areas.
However, the vines themselves are a thorny menace, with a coating of sharp, strong spines that hook backwards towards the root. Catch one of these sometimes slender tendrils around an ankle while walking, and you might think you can just pull through it... and rapidly learn that you shouldn't.
If you can't convince someone to pick them for you, go armoured. I have some old fire turn-out pants that help quite a bit.
I believe they're native to the UK, but not the US. The plant was also rated in second place for per day nectar production per flower in a UK plants survey conducted by the AgriLand project which is supported by the UK Insect Pollinators Initiative.
They also look wonderful, so they're very much here to stay.
One or two on the list are non-native, simply because their nectar production was so good. Admittedly I've been relatively blasé when it comes to native vs non-native. My only requirements were that bees like it and it can grow in the hard, clay-like soil in my garden. I've had no issues with the native plants getting blocked out by the non-native, but I will keep an eye on it and remove any foreign guests that seem to be taking my hospitality too generously.
I've planted the Lonicera periclymenum species, which is very much native to the UK. I'm also looking to plant the other type, Lonicera xylosteum, in the coming months. If you're in the US though I believe it could well be an invasive species from Europe.
Yes, I'm in the US - Minnesota in fact. Our worst bush/tree invader is Buckthorn, but Honeysuckle is right behind it. I believe both were introduced as garden plants.
Having just now read about Rhododendron destroying habitats all around the UK, I'm inclined to tear it out. I'll play it by ear and just keep an eye on it for the moment. If it starts growing unruly I'll be sure to take my shears to it. If only it wasn't so pretty, and so bee-friendly!
My wife and I have been working on growing a lot of native plants (we're in MN) and one of the most amazing things is in the fall we'll have anywhere from 50-100 bees in our plants surrounding our patio. OUR PATIO! The best part about it is that we can sit out there, have a beer, and the bees don't care about us at all. I love to watch the bees, and show the bees to my kids.
We did something similar at the end of the garden with emphasis on native wild species and minimal maintenance - aiming for more wild than garden. The low maintenance didn't quite work as planned. Nature helped and now we've gained brambles (probably the highest maintenance part, as if left alone we'd have no garden, and once in they're damned hard to get rid of), thistle, inevitable dandelions and a few unidentified things have moved in too. The blackberry, nettles and dandelions need regular encouragement not to do too well. Less effort than a boring lawn though.
First year was fairly underwhelming, since then have had all sorts of insects and birds as constant backdrop. Last few years two pairs of birds, not sure if same pairs, have used it for their nesting spot - there's always one nest in the blackberries. I guess brambles are staying! The back of the garage seems to have a couple of masonry bees every summer, and there's a lovely extra sound background from it all. There's constant birdsong at the back. A local cat keeps trying for those nests, but hasn't got to them yet, and has failed noisily a few times... :)
We've twice spotted a frog, but we have no pond and there's no open water near us, so that's been a bit surprising.
> We've twice spotted a frog, but we have no pond and there's no open water near us, so that's a been bit surprising.
We had a similar experience with salamanders showing up. I could not imagine what path they took to get to our garden in a pretty urban place where the nearest creek is a couple of miles away and generally concrete lined. The gardener however suggested that they come from the street drains (which in our area drain to the SF bay, they aren't sewers which take water to the water treatment plant). The nearest street drain is about 3 houses down, still quite a hike for a small beast that likes the wet but I suppose manageable.
After cutting our ivy back from taking over our patio every year for 3 years, I ripped it out and planted raspberries last spring. They're taking over, which is exactly what I hoped would happen, and seem to have successfully outcompeted any ivy I may have missed. If I'm going to have that spreads relentlessly, I may as well get berries out of it.
We'll get the first fruit this year. They're biennial. Super excited.
Saw an article about edible weeds on HN some time back, and got to know of a book on the same subject for a part of India, recently. Interesting topic. Work with nature instead of against it.
you are not allergic. borage belongs to the cucumber family and the stems and leaves have these tiny prickles. just wear long gloves. they reseed like crazy..they are edible flowers and bees love them.
further, the leaves can be cooked as pasta filling. mild taste of cucumber. once you have one borage plant, you will never get rid of them. i have both the blue and white variety.
When I redid my garden I focused on native plants that were unlikely to attract mammals (so no fruiting plants) and would have relatively light water requirements. California is a huge place, so California native doesn't necessarily mean much if you're trying to keep coastal succulents alive in the desert. In theory I've planted things that attract a variety of birds and insects. So far I've attracted mostly hover flies (which I had never seen before) and (very docile) wasps, and a variety of caterpillars. The birds tend to like to bury stuff (whole roasted peanuts…) in the garden and the bees seem more interested in some of the other flowering plants.
That said I would recommend going with native stuff as it will often be more attractive to the indigenous bees and whatnot (European honey bees are, well, European). Sure, Monarchs like milkweed, but the type of milkweed they like will vary by location. Sure, clovers attract a ton of fauna, but the type of clover will vary.
In California, the California Native Plant Society has an invaluable site where you can look up California native plants and where they're typically found[0]. The sticky monkeyflower and tomcat clover have been especially easy to keep alive.
It's a bit late to edit my comment now but yes, most of this list is native to the UK so if you're looking to do something in the US or elsewhere, check online or with your local gardening society to see what works for you.
Native is really ideal. Native plants will have the right water & soil needs, aren't invasive, and are known to pollinators. You can see this in action in our yard- even without supplemental water in a semi-arid climate, the penstemons go gangbusters and are covered in bees.
Penstemons are notoriously difficult to grow in a garden. I had a couple (native to coastal California) and they were disease and pest (aphid) magnets. Absolutely stunning flowers though.
Well, I guess that just illustrates my point- here, they grow like weeds, and if you pay attention they are everywhere. Which makes them a good choice- here.
You can see something similar in our columbine patch, the native blue varieties have reseeded with great success, & the founders are huge and vivacious. But the non-native varieties are pale, small, droopy, stressed, and have not propagated.
P.S. if you're saying you live in coastal CA & tried to grow the local penstemon, did you plant them in the right conditions? They are a xeric plant family, the less you water them the happier they seem...
Yeah the penstemon (Panoche and Blue Springs[1]) were planted together with some woolly sunflower and a native lupine. I also have some epilobium and monkey flower going. None require much water.
Of that one group, the sunflower was the only one that survived. The penstemon were just the biggest magnets for aphids, fungus, and spider mites. One of them bolted, but both had some amazing flowers that the bees loved. In the end I think the soil was just nutrient deficient.
The sunflower has mostly taken over (but is loathe to actually flower), and I've planted a magentaish monkey flower and another lupine. This time around the lupine looks much better. The epilobium and the orange monkey flower continue to thrive.
I'd love to plant another penstemon, but I think next up might be a yellow lupine.
Not all plants work everywhere or should, some on that list are invasive to areas. Your local university or city probably has resources for what native plants would work best for your environment and bees.
Agreed. I would edit my comment but it's a little late now. Most of this list is for the UK, bar a few non-native that I added for looks/nectar production. If you're in the US or elsewhere, make sure to find what is native for you.
Or even better, teach your children what isn't safe to eat so that when the fancy strikes them they don't eat poison. Regardless of whether or not it is in your yard, this can only benefit them.
They might. My sister and I would crush up plants when we were little to make “potions.” We stopped when we made a potion with Serrano peppers at my aunt’s house in Mexico, at least it wasn’t some deadly plants.
Yes. We live in the woods in northern Illinois, and we have taught them to identify wild raspberries and blackberries. They don't eat without running it by us first. That said, I would try to avoid intentionally planting toxic plants in the yard due to both kids and pets.
I have a lavender bush next to my front door. There are always a bunch of bees on it... makes leaving the house in the morning a little more enjoyable.
You need some small flat flowers to get more predator species in there (including lady bugs, lacewings, and some parasitic wasps). Yarrow is the easiest for most of us to get.
We had plenty of these species in our garden before. The lady bugs are an absolute menace and get everywhere! This list was just for particularly bee friendly species.
Never been there. By "mild" do you mean 'not that cold', relative to other places at the same latitude? Because I thought the UK was pretty cold, although a UK friend told me Germany is colder (generally).
I'd describe mild as a lack of drastic change in temperature year around. We normally get temperatures between 0C and 20C, with a few outlier days (more so recently - lots of heat waves for obvious reasons...) This changes from North to South, but we rarely get temperatures and crazy weather like you guys in Europe have at the moment.
I'm not from Europe, I'm from India. Other than that, got your points, thanks. That frequent drizzle or rain and also somewhat frequently varying weather I've read about (mainly in kids' stories and later novels with England as the base location), make the UK weather sound interesting. I've lived in places like that, and also in others, where there are well-defined seasons such as wet and dry, hot and cold. I like both kinds.
The climate in the UK is 'cool' but never extreme in either direction. Germany is hotter in the summer and colder in the winter than the UK, mainly due to the UK being an island nation and being in they path of the jet stream.
There are hundreds of native bee species in California alone. None of them produce honey stores like the Apis mellifera, the european honeybee. We do, however, depend on the honeybee for food crop pollination, which is a huge industry in the US. Beekeepers haul their hives all over the country following the seasons for different crops. Because they're profitable, we have a lot of honeybee research and attention, and that makes them valuable for pointing out problems that are likely affecting other insects (like native bees).
even wasps are pollinators. honeybees extract and store nectar and save pollen. we need both pollinators and apis mellifera.
bumble bees are ground nesters and solitary, for example..they dont create bee hives. better pollinators than honeybees. ditto with carpenter bees/mason bees. honey bees proliferation can displace local pollinators. a balance is needed.
If anyone else would like to outfit their garden with some more bee friendly plants, we've had great luck with the following:-
Most of these are common meadow plants that take little to no effort other than seeding them. Throw them down, cover with grass trimmings, mulch or compost and you're ready to go. This particular list is ideal for a mild, wet climate like the UK. Feel free to modify it depending on your wants and needs!