My cotoneasters are also alive with bees 🐝 atm. Like Jess, I have been watching them trying to get into flowers that aren’t even open yet ....maybe they have a way of getting a sneaky preview?
The baking sun really brought out the bees today; the garden was humming when I first went out late morning. Particularly noticeable was the amount of solitary bees about.
Chives, cornflowers, mountain cornflower, common poppies, salvia nemorosa, and my lone flowering foxglove are popular with the bumblebees at the moment. They're also not quite done with the cotoneaster. The mountain cornflowers were the main draw last year but this year they got too lanky plus were suffering really badly from mildrew so they're all recovering from a chelsea chop and there's far fewer flowers at the moment.
The salvias, cornflowers and my Erigeron karvinskianus are the main draw for the solitary bees. They also pop up occasionally on things like the felicia amelloides and the argyranthemums so they're not totally non-useful plants...
For some reason, the pincushion scabius that were a big hit last year seem to be ignored at the moment.
My recently planted moonshine yarrow is also being ignored. It gets flagged up as a good wildlife plant but so far I haven't noticed a single thing on it's bright yellow flowers..
I have just bought "Moon Carrots" of all things. New to me. Perennial ubellifers. I have high hopes and love the name. Also some ravenswing going in.
Right now the main buzz is on the linaria (buff bumbles), I clearly need more of it. Salvia Bumble - always alive. Pyracantha and the end of the wallflowers are humming. And first year flowering of valerian officianalis. Borage and Rozanne are about to pop; erigeron is quiet - I guess I don't have that many solitaries around. My drilled logs on the shed roof are over half full - the first year of good tenancy.
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Chives, cornflowers, mountain cornflower, common poppies, salvia nemorosa, and my lone flowering foxglove are popular with the bumblebees at the moment. They're also not quite done with the cotoneaster. The mountain cornflowers were the main draw last year but this year they got too lanky plus were suffering really badly from mildrew so they're all recovering from a chelsea chop and there's far fewer flowers at the moment.
The salvias, cornflowers and my Erigeron karvinskianus are the main draw for the solitary bees. They also pop up occasionally on things like the felicia amelloides and the argyranthemums so they're not totally non-useful plants...
For some reason, the pincushion scabius that were a big hit last year seem to be ignored at the moment.
My recently planted moonshine yarrow is also being ignored. It gets flagged up as a good wildlife plant but so far I haven't noticed a single thing on it's bright yellow flowers..