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Plant Ideas Needed
bookmonster
Posts: 399
Below is a picture of our nectar bar border in the sunshine today. We started it in autumn 2012, and we're really pleased with the way it's shaping up - the chives and harebells are very popular with honey bees at the moment.
The one issue is that the hollyhocks are being ravaged by rust, so we're considering replacing them after this year. For such a small border though, they do a great job of adding height, and I'm a bit stuck for ideas. Can anyone think of something that may work? We're going for informal but not too wild, and are open minded about what sort of customers we attract. The soil is improved clay, and it's partial shade. The garage wall faces roughly south and the back fence roughly west.
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How about Thalictrum? Just as much height as hollyhocks, nice little flowers Pink variety and a yellow variety) that last ages and seeds so you can have more. Or delphiniums or echinops.
This is a really big plant, lovely silvery imposing thing, the birds love the seeds too
Knautia macedonica Melton pastels have about 4 to 5 ft height and lots of flowers the bees like.
Angelica, I remember it was covered in insects.
Thanks for all the ideas, I'll look into them! Plenty of ideas there. It's just hard to come up with things that are bee/hoverfly friendly and have that much height!