Flowering plants come in all shapes, sizes and colours but there are some essential requirements for attracting pollinators to your allotment or garden. As well as the bumbles, solitary and honeybees that create that buzz around our plots, other pollinators are also available, as Dave Goulson says: ‘Bees are the best known of pollinators, and they get the lion’s share of the attention, but there are many others….butterflies are perhaps the most familiar. Their mostly nocturnal cousins the moths are more numerous and a little more important as pollinators; pale heavily scented flowers such as honeysuckle are often pollinated by them. Then there are the 256 different UK species of hoverflies; fast-moving, beautiful insects… they tend to visit shallower flowers than bees. On top of that there are the numerous beetles, wasps and flies that pollinate flowers. It has been estimated that there are at least 4,000 species of pollinators just in the UK.’ (Dave Goulson, Gardening for Bumblebees).
Pollinating insects are attracted to flowering plants with accessible flower shapes that allow easy forage, depending on the length of the tongue – no double or tightly petalled flowers that deny access to forage to the nectar and pollen they’re after. Open, single petal daisy or cup shaped flowers, tubular and flat umbelliferous flower heads all provide pollinators with quick and easy access; planting in drifts saves energy and flowering trees and shrubs provide an instant banquet for easy nectar and pollen foraging. And native and non-native plants can all work if the flower shape’s right for the pollinator to access.
Nectar is, ‘an energy source, a bit like a sugar rush, and fuels their daily activity…Some pollinators use the flowers as a meeting place, a bit like a pub where the males can feed, meet and check out the ‘girls’.’ (Jean Vernon, Attracting Garden Pollinators). The protein rich pollen is collected by bees to feed their larvae; ‘during this process they can become covered in pollen as they move from flower to flower. The messier bees are the best pollinators. One mason bee does the pollination work of 120 honeybees.’ (RHS, An introduction to Garden Bees with Jean Vernon).
In early spring, when the temperatures begin to rise the first emerging queen bumbles and honey bees need nectar and pollen for protein, think hellebores, crocuses, hazel catkins, pulmonaria, phacelia, and leave a few dandelions – a good source for early insects! Forage is needed right until the end of the growing season – think asters, cosmos, helenium, sedum, ceratostigma, salvia, rudbeckia and other favourite late season plants. Self-seeded comfrey, nasturtiums, calendula, red and white clover, yarrow, marjoram, nettles and bramble all provide forage as well as egg laying sites for different pollinators.
Right plant, right place is a key gardening mantra, but choosing plants to attract pollinators is very much a personal choice. For early season how about hellebores, alliums and erysimums, perennial wallflowers, including the popular ‘Bowles’s Mauve: ‘It’s high on my list for environmental gardening as the beautiful mauve flowers are nectar and pollen rich for bees, butterflies, moths, lacewings, hoverflies and ladybirds.’ (Kevin Line, HPS)
Allium bulbs are also easy to grow, with their round headed flowers attracting pollinators. There is a great range of colour and size; a particular favourite of mine is Allium Sphaerocephalon, the ‘Drumstick’ allium, a bee magnet.
And if you have the space, a small Malus, crab apple will provide blossom for pollinators, fruit for other wildlife and crabapple jelly for you. Dwarf stock plum, apple, pear and other fruit trees will bring in the bees, as will flowering currant, Ribes. Hawthorn and Blackthorn both provide early blossom for pollinators and blackthorn is the food and egg laying source for the Brown Streaked butterfly.
Culinary flowering herbs – rosemary, thyme, marjoram, fennel, dill etc are all useful on the plot, in the garden or window box – flowers for pollinators, leaves for the cook! From achillea and ajuga to zinnia, from borage to yarrow, pollinators will be attracted to the right flowers in the right soil conditions, grown in healthy soil to provide growing plants with the best chance of strong and resilient growth. No chemicals used and peat free, of course!
Jenny Bourne
03.03.26
References:
Dave Goulson, Gardening for Bumblebees, Square Peg, 2021
Jean Vernon, Attracting Garden Pollinators, Pen and Sword Books, 2022
RSH Garden Wisley Courses and Workshops. An Introduction to Garden Bees with Jean Vernon
Kevin Line Hardy Plant Society https://hardy-plant.org.uk