Bee happy!
There has been so much press recently about our dying bee populations – the figures really are sickeningly dramatic. I was particularly saddened to read a couple of weekends back of a mass death in the area of Traslasierra in Córdoba province where 72 million bees died in just one weekend after over-zealous spraying of some crops! They are some of the hardest working creatures on our planet and it is estimated that bees pollinate one third of our food. We need to be kind to them.
So I was particularly pleased this week to be asked for some ad- vice on what to plant in and around a bee farm. A nectar café that would provide the bees with not only a safe habitat but also a place where they can always forage and find food.
On a smaller scale, it is something we can all plan in our gardens. Every morning now, when I step out of our front door, it gives me a warm feeling when I see bees busily working our wisteria flowers. It’s delightful, but a little trickier to keep this activity going throughout the year.
Here are some of the necessities you need to think about. Firstly, make your bee garden as sheltered as you can – even the best nectar plants will struggle against a cold wind and bees dont´ like to be out and about in those conditions. Plant in drifts so that colour and scent are easily detected.
Simple flowers – as against doubles - are more attractive to bees and these are usually old-fashioned varieties, before the days of fancy hybridisation. Double forms can often be difficult for a bee to access and they are sometimes so highly cultivated that they have no nectar or pollen.
Bees are blind to red and orange and are attracted to paler colours – white, soft yellow, pink, blue and lilac. Scent is a great draw too. Veinings on flowers are often there to guide the bees into the pollen, so look out for them in your flowers.
Flowers with ‘landing pad’ petals – such as iris and antirrhinum – are great for them to land and take off. Spread the flowering season throughout the year – for your own delight and that of the bees! Remember that most herbs are very attractive to bees, so use them lavishly in your planting scheme.
So, specifically, here are some plants that will invite our lovely furry visitors into your garden throughout the seasons.
Early spring: wisteria sinensis, jasminum polyanthum, papaver, clematis armandii, aubretia, alyssum, nasturtium, erysimum or wallflower. All our daisy type flowers such as argyranthemum, felicia, gazania, dimorphotheca and lampranthus are magnets too. Spring flowering bulbs such as narcissi, crocus and tulips. Also, and vitally important, all our fruit trees, starting with almonds, quince, peach, nectarine, apricot, plum, cherry and advancing into pomegranate, loquat etc. The bees are loving our paulownia tree in full flower at the moment. Late spring into summer: the mallow family such as hollyhocks, digitalis or foxgloves, lilies, iris, verbena bonariensis, echinacea or coneflower, hemerocalis, penstemon, portulaca, borage and comfrey, cerinthe major, scabious, tulbaghia, echium, acan- thus, helianthemum or sunflower, hibiscus and the lovely dusty pink centranthus ruber or valerian. Single roses are loved more than the very fully petalled ones. Think too of climbers such as distictis laxiflora, petrea volubilis, campsis grandiflora (they prefer the softer apricot colouring to the vibrant orange) and honeysuckle.
Autumn: Most of our early springtime flowerers awake from summer hibernation and have a second life in autumn. Many of the golden-coloured daisies are at their best – rudbeckia, coreopsis and gaillardia. Sedum spectabile and heliotrope or hot cherry pie are both great autumn favourites.
Winter: aster, ceanothus, crocus colchicum, hellebore, aloe arborescens and the prolificallyflowering hardenbergia violacea or Australian wisteria.
Herbs will often flower intermittently year round: lavender, rosemary, sage and thyme are probably their favourites but they are also drawn to mints, chives, nepeta or catmint and oreganum.
Remember that helping our bees is helping ourselves!