BEE- FRIENDLY PLANTS & FLOWERS

Garden goodness as voted for by hungry pollinators… Time to reassess what you might think of as a weed

Lavender

Who doesn’t love lavender’s floral-herbal fragrance and glorious purple hues? And if the bees love it too, so much the better. However, not all varieties of lavender are created equal in terms of attracting pollinators. Look out for ‘bee friendly’ labels at garden centres. The Hidcote variety is a good blend of attractive, hardy and beloved of bees. Flowering from May to the end of July, depending on the type, lavender is a great choice as a way to help fill the ‘pollen gap’ in high summer, where many flowers die off.

Clover

Clover is often a casualty of over-zealous lawn-mowing. Strictly speaking a name applied to some 300 different species, the most common types to appear in garden lawns are white and red clovers. If grass is left unmowed, clovers will often appear. The structure of the flowers helps deliver nectar easily to pollinators, and the long flowering season – May to October – provides a lasting source of food. How about leaving a patch of the lawn to grow unchecked, or plant a wildflower meadow area to encourage this flower that contributes a distinctive and delightful flavour to honeys?

Ivy

Where dandelions, clover and brambles suffer for early season gardening, ivy is threatened later in the year. Bees and pollinating insects see ivy as a rich and essential source of late-season nectar and pollen. Ivy flowers in autumn, sometimes nudging into winter, often after the time when gardeners might have pruned back its profusion of dark green glossy leaves without noticing the greeny-yellow flowers. Pruning at this stage deprives bees – including the ivy bee, which eats nothing else – of valuable nutrition at a time when little

else is available.

Blackberry

The humble bramble may feel like a menace, but if you can bring yourself to allow them an area in which to thrive, those simple blush-tinged white flowers are a favourite pollen source for bees. The blossom season for brambles is far longer, and hardier than for many plants, lasting for several months from June to September. In less-than-perfect summers, this food source can be crucial. And remember, leaving the plants alone means more blackberries, too. Consider all those jars of delicious jam to be a thank you from the bees.

Borage

One of the best loved of bee herbs, the small but intensely blue flowers of borage appear in June and July. The herb is often planted alongside strawberries in to encourage the pollinators to visit and do their work, blessing the gardener with a better harvest. Borage flowers are a pretty addition to summer salads and drinks – leave some for the bees though! Borage seeds contain essential fatty acids that make the oil an excellent ingredient in homemade skincare products, and it is said to be soothing moisturiser for irritated skin.

Rosemary

With more plant-lore and traditions attached to it than most garden shrubs, rosemary is just as important to bees as it is in the kitchen. The vigorously bushy herb celebrates spring with a profusion of delicate blue flowers which are much loved by pollen-starved insects. Try to resist the temptation to cut back the plant until after flowering is over and the bees have a wider variety of pollen sources on hand. Later on in the summer, why not cook a roast leg of lamb with some local honey and some of that rosemary, and raise a toast to the bees you helped thrive?

Hawthorn

This common deciduous resident of scrub and woodland throughout the northern hemisphere also goes by the name of May-tree, giving a sneaky clue as to when it flowers. The tiny white – or sometimes pink – blossom appears early and relatively fleetingly, but its sweet fragrance is unmissable both for bees and beekeepers as a sign of spring finally having arrived in earnest. These unassuming flowers support around 300 species of insects. Later in the year, the blossoms develop into red fruit or ‘haws’ which can be made into jellies or wines, although the flavour of the fruit has sometimes been likened to that of overripe apples.

Fruit trees & bushes

Much as we enjoy the end result of planting fruit trees and shrubs in the garden, so bees and pollinators appreciate the flowering stage of these plants. Orchard fruits such as apples, pears, cherries and crabapples all produce delicate and relatively short-lived spring blossom irresistible to winged insects. Fruit plants such as raspberries and strawberries are another boon for bees, giving flowers across the warmer months. As with blackberries, consider your fruity harvest to be a big think you from the insects that helped the pollination process which resulted in the fruit.

Dandelions

Frequently one of the first casualties of spring lawnmowing, the dandelion has a value to winged insects that far outweighs its visual appeal to gardeners. The bright yellow blooms attract vast numbers of visitors desperate for food after the lean colder months. In the garden, it’s vital to not spray these cheery ‘weeds’, as hungry bees will be contaminated too and can transfer poisoned pollen to the hive or nest. Dig them up if you must or use a blowtorch instead. Consider encouraging local landowners to not mow until after dandelion flowering season is over.