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

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  • Victoria SpongeVictoria Sponge Posts: 3,502
    BirminghamMarc1972 said:
    Victoria Sponge said:

    @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
    Oh, is it one of the lythrums? I have salicaria and virgatum although I can't tell which is which.
    Wearside, England.
  • RubytooRubytoo Posts: 1,630
    @Victoria Sponge I think you got it, salicaria as virginatum has more spread spidery petals?  Think BirminghamMarcs photo petals look closer .
  • Victoria SpongeVictoria Sponge Posts: 3,502
    It's not dissimilar to my 'original flavour' lythrum salicaria, Purple Loosestrife, so you could be right @Rubytoo ...hopefully it is of some help to @BirminghamMarc1972
    Wearside, England.
  • BrexiteerBrexiteer Posts: 955
    Cheers lads and lasses in particular @Victoria Sponge for getting in touch about it. Like I say the bees love it later in the season rather than now, maybe because others that are in preference are flowering now. I planted bishop of Llandaff for the bees they are full of flower but I'm yet to see a pollinator on there as yet
  • Dave HumbyDave Humby Posts: 1,145
    Went past a neighbours down the road this evening while walking the dog and found this amazing run of some of lavender(?) absolutely covered in bumble bees. My quick movement of the camera didn’t do them justice but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was 75+ there. 

    https://youtu.be/3rTWA7UtB50

  • BloodyNoraBloodyNora Posts: 78
    Dave Humby said:
    Went past a neighbours down the road this evening while walking the dog and found this amazing run of some of lavender(?) absolutely covered in bumble bees. My quick movement of the camera didn’t do them justice but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was 75+ there. 

    https://youtu.be/3rTWA7UtB50

    I have two lavender plants in pots and the bees absolutely love them...i wonder how they cling on to those things sometimes.
  • HippophaeHippophae Posts: 154
    Are Buddleja davidii typically regarded as good bee forage plants? Because it isn’t a plant that I would normally associate with them. Always thought of it more as a butterfly attracting plant, but there is a ‘wild’ or self seeded plant, a real purple flowered monster, towering above where my tomato plants are growing and this afternoon I noticed how honeybees are working the flowers like crazy. They are definitely going for the nectar as I was able to watch one honeybee on a flower panicle close to my head inserting her “tongue” into the flower tubes one after the other. I also saw a solitary peacock butterfly visiting flowers near the top of the bush, but that was the only butterfly that I saw during the couple of minutes or so that I spent observing the plant. So few butterflies visiting the buddleja shrubs this summer. What is going on?
  • PeggyTXPeggyTX Posts: 556
    edited July 2019
    The bees love my abelias when they are in bloom best:  
    The hummingbirds like the bougainvillia until they find out the bracts do not produce much pollen (if any) and really prefer the red Turk's Cap (they ignore the pink completely), as do the bees: 
    My low-carb recipe site: https://buttoni.wordpress.com/
  • HippophaeHippophae Posts: 154
    Honeybee nectaring on buddleja


  • bullfinchbullfinch Posts: 692
    Our white-flowered  escallonia has been absolutely buzzing for a couple of days.
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