Every year I grow lots of different flowers on my allotment. Most of them attract at least some pollinators but others are so attractive that they are often covered in bees, butterflies, hoverflies and other pollinators on a sunny warm day. A few plants I grow attract very specific pollinators such as campanulas (especially
Campanula rotundifolium and
C. persicifolium) which attract the harebell carpenter bee (
Chelostoma campanularum) and some of my herbaceous potentillas which seem to attract only social wasps, but this may be a topic for another blog post. Here I want to show some of the plants on my allotment which attract a wide range of different pollinators, all well-worth growing in your garden if you want to help pollinators.
1. Crocus
One of the best plants for early bees and flies in late winter/early spring are the various crocuses I grow. I have mainly
Crocus crysanthus and
Crocus tommasinianus which flower late January and in February. On a warm day newly emerged bumblebee queens seek out the flowers, I have also seen drone flies (
Eristalis spp.), hairy-footed flower bees (
Anthophora plumipes) and other early solitary bees such as mining bees (
Andrena spp.).
2. Poached Egg Plant (Limnanthes douglasii)
Poached egg plants are annuals but you only have to sow them once and they will come back year after year as they self-sow prolifically but never get out of hand. They normally flower in May and provide a welcome splash of colour and a good food-source for bees, hoverflies, other flies and beetles. On warm sunny days in May I often lie in wait with my camera near a patch of flowers to take photos of visiting pollinators, I never have to wait long until something arrives.
3. Ornamental Alliums
I grow various different ornamental alliums, from early alliums such as
Allium roseum and
Allium `Purple Sensation` to later alliums such as
Allium sphaerocephalum,
A. moly and
A. caeruleum. All are good for pollinators and are easy to accommodate as you only have to remember to plant the bulbs in autumn. They all like sunshine and most of them will come back year after year if planted in well-drained soil. The main flower visitors seem to be bumblebees but I have also seen solitary bees on some of the earlier alliums, especially
Allium roseum.
4. Cosmos
I grow
Cosmos bipinnatus and
C. sulphureus on my allotment. Both are annuals and have to be raised from seed every year. Both sometimes self-sow but I find that often the seedlings germinate too early and are killed off by late frosts. For this reason I always make sure I collect seeds in autumn and sow them under cover in April to plant out in mid-May. The plants grow in any good garden soil and like full sunshine. The flowers attract mainly bumblebees, solitary bees and butterflies.
5. Giant Hyssop (Agastache spp.)
Many agastache are border-line hardy or have to be treated as annuals but a few are winter-hardy in the UK. I grow
Agastache foeniculum (also called anise hyssop) which is fully winter-hardy on my allotment. Raising the plants from seed is easy if you have a greenhouse, otherwise you can find plants in most nurseries or online. Agastache likes full sunshine and well-drained soil, wet feet in winter will most likely kill the plant. It flowers in summer and is very attractive to bumblebees; it is a joy to watch all the busy bees collecting pollen and nectar on a sunny day.
6. Viper`s bugloss (Echium spp.)
Most echiums are biennial plants, they grow a rosette in the first year and a tall flower spike in the second. This is certainly the case for our native purple viper`s bugloss,
Echium vulgare. There are a few perennial echiums such as
Echium amoenum which comes from the Caucasus, but it is difficult to keep the plants alive in our wet winters. There are a few very attractive border-line hardy echiums from the Canary Islands such as
Echium wildpretii and
E. pinninana but they only survive outdoors in very sheltered gardens. Apart from the native
Echium vulgare I have also grown
Echium wildpretii which I raised from seed. I kept the plants in a greenhouse in the first year and planted them outside in mid-May in the second year. The flower was spectacular (see pictures on the right and below) but it really is a lot of effort. This year I am trying out
Echium pinninana, also grown from seed. I currently have large plants in the greenhouse and will plant them out in May. The flowers can be up to 4m tall!
If you don`t have a greenhouse and/or the time for the border-line hardy echiums it is easiest to grow our native
Echium vulgare. You can sow the seeds directly outside, best in summer to give the plants time to establish before they flower in the next year. All echiums are great for bumblebees.
7. Poppies (Papaver spp.)
Poppies are easy to grow, cheerful early summer flowers, most are annual or short-lived perennials but a few, such as oriental poppies (
Papaver orientale), are long-lived perennials. I grow a selection of poppies, from annual corn poppy (
Papaver rhoeas), to short-lived arctic poppy (
Papaver nudicaule) and long-lived oriental poppy (
Papaver orientale). It is quite interesting that poppy flowers do not provide any nectar for pollinators but the flowers are nevertheless very attractive as the pollen is very protein-rich and produced in such abundance that especially bees cannot resist. Bumblebees have a special trick to collect the pollen which is called buzz pollination. As soon as the bees land in a poppy flower they start to vibrate their flight muscles very rapidly to dislodge the pollen from the anthers. You can hear this if you stand close to a poppy flower with a bumblebee inside as a high-pitched buzzing sound.
8. Wild marjoram (Origanum vulgare)
Probably one of the best plants for pollinators, wild marjoram is easy to grow in any good, well-drained garden soil in full sunshine. The tiny flowers produce a large amount of nectar which is highly attractive to all sorts of pollinators. Solitary bees, bumblebees, hoverflies, other flies, wasps, moths and butterflies all visit the flowers, and often they are so occupied with drinking nectar that I can get quite close to them to take photos.
9. Thistles (e.g. Cirsium spp., Carduus spp.)
Thistles are often seen as a weed and some can certainly be a nuisance but there are many very pretty and well-behaved thistles which are worth growing in a garden. I have to admit that I have a soft spot for thistles and have grown quite a lot now on my allotment. The thistles I have tried out but which I have not continued growing for various reasons are milk thistle
(Silybum marianum) which was too prickly, nodding thistle (Carduus nutans) which is pretty but grew too large, woolly thistle (Cirsium eriophorum) which was too large and died after flowering, and purple milk thistle (Galactitis tomentosa) which is pretty but not winter-hardy here in UK so has to be grown from seed every year. The thistles I am still growing and can wholeheartedly recommend are our rare native tuberous thistle (
Cirsium tuberosum) and
Cirsium rivulare `Atropurpureum`. I am trying out a new thistle this year, Cirsium nipponicum from Japan, hopefully a good one.
All thistles are great plants for pollinators, especially bumblebees and butterflies seem to like the flowers but I have also seen solitary bees, beetles and hoverflies visiting.
10. Asters
Asters (also called michaelmas daisies) are one of the main stars of the autumn garden. There are a few spring-flowering asters such as Aster tongolensis but most asters flower from late summer until the first frosts. I grow many different asters such as Aster amellus, Aster x frikartii, Aster `Little Carlow`, New York aster (Symphyotrichum novi-belgii), New England aster (S. novi-angliae) and fragrant aster (S. oblongifolius). All asters are good pollinator plants, some are more attractive to pollinators than others but you cannot really go wrong if you stick to the asters with the more simple flowers. I mainly see late bumblebees such as common carder bumblebees (Bombus pascuorum) and late butterflies such as the admiral visiting the flowers.
