Hello, I have thoroughly enjoyed reading some of the posts on this forum. I only have a tiny garden, but have stuffed it as full of plants for bees as I can. If it is of help to any others with small spaces, the plants I have found to attract bumblebees are as follows :-
Pulmonaria (early and long flowering) Chives (dual purpose, cut some for the kitchen, but leave to flower, the bees love them) Geranium ( the cup shaped flowers are perfect for the shorter tongued bumbles) Lavender (try to plant more than one kind, as the vary in flowering, and this will expand the season) Monarda (great to watch the bees fight to get into the tubular flowers,chose the smaller varieties) polemonium northern lights ( this is a beautiful, and very long flowering form, easy to grow and split, flowers for months) Echinops (again chose the smaller varieties, the white form is small) Agastache, (take cuttings or use self seedlings as not always hardy) Astrantia (loved by bees and other beneficial insects, lots of smaller varieties to chose from) Salvia, Allium sphaerocephalon (bulbs can be grown in pots, I have seen up to five bees feeding on one flower head) Scabious, Echinacea (smaller varietes) Eryngium (fabulous plant, and will attract lots of bees, watch out though they are spiky) Calamintha nepeta(similar to cat mint without the associated problems, mine is called ‘Blue Cloud’ I only have one plant and have counted as many as 20 bees,3 species, on it at one time) Cultivated varieties of knapweed.

I have achieved a garden buzzing with bees, it took me a lot of trial and error, so I hope this is of use to some of you I have added a collage of some of these plants with the bees from my garden.

     

Great information there & I love the collage. I have some of those plants already, but I’ll be watching out for those I don’t have.

Regards

Cliff

     

Good to know about the nepeta variety you’ve got - I’ve always steered away from catmint as I have trouble enough discouraging cats already, and don’t want to do anything that’s going to encourage them!

Brilliant list of plants you’ve got there! I had a white Echinops a while ago and it only every attracted wasps, in particular a very aggressive german wasp so we ended up getting rid of the plant. Glad that this isn’t the case for you!

     

Thanks for the information about the bee-friendly plants you’ve got. Nice collage too!

     

I love your collage, and you obviously have some very well fed bumblebees in your garden.

I try to provide pollen and nectar from spring through to the back end of summer-early autumn….altho I achieve the most success in summer. In my garden the most popular plants are;

hyssop
thyme
oregano
lavender
tithonia rotundifolia
echinacea altho I lost my clump this winter :( 
veronica
echiums (only managed to get a pininana to flower once…bee magnet!)
cosmos
marigold
tagettes
nemesia
apple blossom (we have a dwarf tree in our small garden)
stoksia
sanguisorba
hellenium
dahlias (open types)
liatris
verbena bonariensis

um…..my garden may be small but it’s stuffed with plants. The bumblebees are very friendly in my garden too…they don’t seem to mind me crawling about peering at them. Managed to stroke a beautiful male ? bombus leucorum the other day too…

 

     

Hi lougo412

We are just now putting together our latest Bumblebee Conservation Trust newsletter, and I was hoping to use your collage in it. Is that ok with you? I can be contacted at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Kind regards,
Anthony
BBCT Outreach Officer

     

This is a great thread. Thank you everyone.
Absolutely gorgeous collage lougo412. Inspired!

elaine