My Symphytum officinale (Common Comfrey) seems to be one of the best in terms of species diversity for bees, so is Erysimum Bowles' Mauve. I never quite realised how good the erysimum was in terms of insect diversity until the last couple of years, getting loads of Orange Tip butterflies as well as the occasional bee-fly feeding from it!
Erysimum Bowles' Mauve often tops the charts for pollinators - like with geranium Rozanne, not because it offers extra huge amounts of pollen or nectar or because it recharges very fast (like borage) - but because it has such a long flowering season.
Erysimum Bowles' Mauve often tops the charts for pollinators - like with geranium Rozanne, not because it offers extra huge amounts of pollen or nectar or because it recharges very fast (like borage) - but because it has such a long flowering season.
Geranium Roxanne is a plant I'd like to have in my garden. I have a few Geranium Johnsons Blue that I believe look similar and the bees like
Here at the mo it's stachys byzantina, open flowered roses, lavender just opening, phlomis russelliana, alliums and red clover. All buzzing with all sorts of insects.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
I'm feeling a bit down about bees at the moment and for the last couple of years in all honesty. We have a climbing hydrangea that covers most of the front of our house and it's flowering at the moment, so we have basically a whole house front of white flowers. A few years ago it used to sound like a busy motorway with all the buzzing, literally you could here it from the back garden but last year and now this, there have been only a handful of bees on it (and this morning I couldn't see any at all). We have a large buddleia globosa which was a quarter of the size last year and it had over 75 bumble bees on it at one time. It has only just started to flower well and it's still doing the business with a good amount of bees but nothing like last year so far even though it's four times the size.
Down the allotment I have a bee area with a couple of car sized beds just for comfrey plus another couple that have catmint, geraniums etc and the lack of life is amazing. There are a few bees on the comfrey but not many compared to the past. So I'm just down on the situation really. It's all well and good having a garden full of bee attracting flowers, which we do, but it's not so good if there aren't any bees to benefit. I am sure they will come as they did last year but it was later in the season when the echinops and eryngiums get going but it's quite depressing in all honesty.
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Linaria purpurea Lilac Time, a stunning 1.20m. As soon as I added the plant to the bed, I had 6 bees on it.
I noticed that many of the plants with a label of being wild-life friendly are totally ignored by any kind of wild-life like Euryops pectinatus.
I ♥ my garden.
We have a large buddleia globosa which was a quarter of the size last year and it had over 75 bumble bees on it at one time. It has only just started to flower well and it's still doing the business with a good amount of bees but nothing like last year so far even though it's four times the size.
Down the allotment I have a bee area with a couple of car sized beds just for comfrey plus another couple that have catmint, geraniums etc and the lack of life is amazing. There are a few bees on the comfrey but not many compared to the past. So I'm just down on the situation really. It's all well and good having a garden full of bee attracting flowers, which we do, but it's not so good if there aren't any bees to benefit. I am sure they will come as they did last year but it was later in the season when the echinops and eryngiums get going but it's quite depressing in all honesty.