The BUZZ about BEES
Ginny Clark suggests what you can plant in your garden to curb the decline of bees
IN RECENT TIMES, there has been a decline in bees. This is partly due to the loss of their habitat due to the incidence of mass land development, removal of fruit orchards, weather conditions and disease.
In addition, there has been a trend in recent years for so called ‘maintenance free' or low-maintenance gardens, many of which have no flowers that the bees can forage through.
We have found that people in new subdivisions are not having much success with pollination of their fruit trees, and highly encourage the companion planting of flowers within the garden to encourage bees and consequently improve pollination.
So, what should we plant?
■ Trees that blossom such as cherries, crab-apples, Cercis, pip and stone fruit and citrus trees. Stand under a flowering cherry tree at this time of year and hear the buzz.
■ Shrubs such as Mexican Orange Blossom, grevilleas, manuka, hebes, blueberries and berry fruit.
■ Bees also love blue flowers, in particular lavender and rosemary. Other herbs are also great for attracting bees such as sage, thyme, basil, borage, and coriander.
■ Beans and brassicas that have gone to seed, will also bring them in, so leave a few flowering away in your vege plot.
■ Of course, all the annual flowers are excellent bee magnets. You can plant seeds or punnets of marigolds, zinnias, petunias, salvias, wildflowers, and a myriad others, which will colour your garden beautifully and keep a small army of pollinators happy.
The main thing is to have a source of food and water available for bees all year round; especially now when they are foraging and building up their hives.
Be mindful if you are spraying flowering plants — do so at night when the bees are not working and choose bee-friendly products such as Grosafe Enspray 99 Oil, Grosafe Free Flo
Copper, Yates Success Ultra and Mavrik.
By encouraging bees into your neighbourhood, not only will you improve your fruiting yields, but you will be doing our horticulture industry and beekeepers a favour by helping ensure the bee populations for the future. So, get growing bee-friendly gardens to get them buzzing. We have oodles of bee-friendly plants in now.