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Which plant in *your* garden do bees best like?

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  • I have a few different cotoneaster and as each comes into blossom there are thousands of bees on them. The Horizontal which is planted under our front lounge window is especially a mass of bees in Spring.
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    Amazing pictures, everyone. It's good to see what a gaillardia is actually supposed to look like. Lol. Mine did not look like that.
    It's lovely to see buff-tailed bumbles falling asleep the face of my Velvet Queen sunflower. Snoozing on a red blanket.

    🐝


  • RubytooRubytoo Posts: 1,630
    At the moment Salvia Amistad seems favoiurite and a Veronica which I am not sure of the name, the label might be wrong but it is a light purpley colour.
    Also I bought a Geranium Azure Rush the other day. I felt bad as they were covered in bees of various kinds at the nursery and they were even settling on the pots in hand as I was trying to pick the best one.
     
    Another lady there looking we had a joke about getting a free bee with every plant.
  • HippophaeHippophae Posts: 154
    Are these knapweed flowers? Because the meadow near me is full of them at the moment and there are honeybees all over the flowers. Hundreds of honeybees! It sure explains why I have only seen a handful of honeybees on cultivated flowers in gardens elsewhere in the neighbourhood.


  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    Euonymus is just opening at mine and the hoverflies are loving it. Privet is doing well, too.
  • Fishy65Fishy65 Posts: 2,276
    If I had to pick one plant then I'd say Echium Vulgare Viper's Bugloss. Though it's run very close by a number of others.

  • Fishy65Fishy65 Posts: 2,276
    Yes Hippophae, lesser knapweed and very beautiful it looks too  :)
  • Victoria SpongeVictoria Sponge Posts: 3,502
    I bought that knapweed as a garden plant but since then have seen it on every wild verge 😁. Mine isn't getting a huge amount of interest but I have an excess of stachys byzantina (lambs ear) which honeys and bumbles like, also annual poppies.

    One that surprised me by its popularity is thalictrum flavum glaucum (mine is Illuminator) I've never seen a bee on any of my other thalictrums, pink or yellow but this plant is constantly buzzing (bumbles mostly, a few hovers and little flies).

    @BirminghamMarc1972 did you find out what your plant was from a few pages back, around May time?
    Wearside, England.
  • BrexiteerBrexiteer Posts: 955
    I bought that knapweed as a garden plant but since then have seen it on every wild verge 😁. Mine isn't getting a huge amount of interest but I have an excess of stachys byzantina (lambs ear) which honeys and bumbles like, also annual poppies.

    One that surprised me by its popularity is thalictrum flavum glaucum (mine is Illuminator) I've never seen a bee on any of my other thalictrums, pink or yellow but this plant is constantly buzzing (bumbles mostly, a few hovers and little flies).

    @BirminghamMarc1972 did you find out what your plant was from a few pages back, around May time?
    It's not popular just yet usually a bit later in the year
  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    Wild rocket [which I have a lot of] and Heucheras tend to be the favourites in my garden. Both are long flowering, so highly beneficial. I don't grow a lot of flowery perennials, so that type of plant is very useful. 
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
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