In the past week or two, the hydrangea bush has been a huge draw for bees and other pollinators. That’s not to say, however, that the pollinators aren’t visiting the rest of the garden. With the exception of daylilies, which I grow for their beautiful faces, I try to keep the birds and the bees in mind when choosing garden plants.
It’s really the least one can do for them, considering what a heavy toll we take on their natural environment, one way and another.
Pictured here are just a few of the garden flowers that attract bees and other pollinators.
Plants such as coreopsis and sunflowers and native grasses provide birds with a seed crop as well.
A selection of native plants is great, but I also have some non-natives that are very popular. By far the most bee-loved plant in the garden is Dark Mullein (verbascum nigrum). It is the European cousin of our native mullein. This biennial is short-lived, but seeds itself freely. In the spring, I noticed several large rosettes sprouting in a bare patch where I planted annuals last year.
The large leaves are rather weedy and course, but the rosettes expand at an amazing rate. I enjoyed watching the plants as they put out tall, stately flower stalks.
Each individual flower is quite small, but very colourful, with bright yellow petals setting off wine-pink centres and stamens. Once the flower stalks reach their blooming peak, they have a powerful presence in the garden.
At their peak, the flower stalks are hugely attractive to pollinators, especially bumblebees, who gather in large numbers each morning to collect the day’s bounty of nectar. No doubt, if they could vote, the bees would award Dark Mullein their “Pollinator’s Favorite” award. It is also pretty popular with the gardener.
I tend to keep a close eye out for honeybees, given their especially stressed status. I was very pleased to see many more of them this year than I have in the past several.
That Dark Mullein is giving me a hankering for popcorn! Amazing.
The “spikes” on my agastache are an inch or less high. I hope all they need is a little patience on my part.
Should I not deadhead my coreopsis, then?
Hi Louise, The colony collapse syndrome is terrible and it is worrying given the way modern agricultural practitioners transport the honey bees around the country and use them extensively for food crops. However, they are not native bees, and would only be seen a mile or so from their hive unless a colony happened to go wild and wasn’t recovered by the beekeeper. I don’t know of any hives immediately around here, but a few honey bees show up. Bumblebees are native to North America. They and other pollinators have been threatened by pesticide use and habitat destruction, and can use all the help they can get.
Hey, LB! I planted my agastache last fall and it came up very well this year. Maybe yours just needs more time. This one is Blue Fortune, the most common species.
I don’t deadhead my coreopsis just because I am lazy, and it has done remarkably well in spite of my neglect. Perhaps you should deadhead early in the season, and later in the summer, let it go to seed.
Ive never seen lovelier mullein.
those are beautiful photos, and I especially have a soft-spot for the mullein. It’s a beautiful flower, and very common around my neck of the woods. My neighbour has one in his garden this year that must have topped 8 feet, with a couple of dozen flowering stems a yard long. Quite a sight!
Thank you, Fern, it was a sight to behold.
Tony, 8 feet is amazing! These ones were about 4 1/2 to 5 feet tall, and very lush.