Released On 15th Mar 2024
How To Make Your Garden Bee-Friendly For Spring
Your garden should be your own little patch of heaven. Somewhere that you can go to relax and unwind in whatever way looks right for you. All while taking in the beauty and variety that nature has to offer. It’s our job to make sure you love your garden. But do you know who else not only loves your garden, but relies on it?
Bees.
Hardworking, trusty pollinators, bees are an essential part of our ecosystem. But over the last few years, bees have been struggling, with their food being destroyed to make way for new developments and pesticides killing a lot of them off. Luckily, our gardens can provide the perfect
Choose Bee-Friendly Flowers and Trees
The very first thing your DIY bee garden needs to offer is food. This means choosing flowers and trees that can provide bees with their favourite meals – nectar and pollen. It’s easier than it sounds, since gardeners have been working on identifying the best plants for bees for a long time now. They include:
- Lavender
- Bluebells
- Echinacea purpurea
- Rosemary
- Foxgloves
All of these flowers come in a fantastic range of colours that look great in your garden, and are extremely attractive to bees, so they’re all good choices. If you noticed a theme there, well done! It turns out that bees have a favourite colour, and it’s purple! So any plants you can add with a purple hue will always be a bit with bees. But they do love other colours too, and there’s a full list here.
When it comes to other plants, bees love fruit trees of any kind, and vegetable plants are a nice seasonal treat. Since most of our favourite veggies (like onions, beans and peppers) produce bee-friendly flowers, bees will help pollinate them for you. It’s a win-win.
Plant Flowers That Bloom Throughout the Year
Most flowers don’t produce blooms all year round, which can present a problem for bees in the winter months. After all, they need to collect nectar and pollen all year long. So when choosing the flowers for your garden, go for a mix of early and late-season flowers. This helps keep your garden full of flowers and bees from early spring until well after the summer sun has faded.
Avoid Using Pesticides
This one should be obvious, but pesticides are extremely toxic to bees and will kill them. We know most people aren’t using pesticides specifically to get rid of bees, but they are still one of the big causes of the decline in their population. Instead, try to use smarter gardening methods to keep the real pests at bay. Natural fertilisers are good for keeping your plants strong, and can fight off a lot of pests on their own. Picking smart plant combis can reduce attacks, as well as things like adding coffee grounds to your soil. Remember that pests will always be part of your gardening routine, and despite their reputation not all of them are bad.
Avoid Plants With Lots of Petals
This might sound a little counter-intuitive, but sometimes the best flowers for bees are the ones without many petals. Bees can find it difficult to navigate a lot of petals, so avoid ones with overly thick or dense petals, or double flowers.
Don’t Get Rid of All the Weeds
Weeds might be a nuisance, but they are an important part of your garden’s ecosystem. Especially when it comes to bees and other pollinating insects. If you can manage it, leave a patch of your garden to ‘go to seed’. Rewilding is a fantastic way to support all of the little beasts that make your garden healthy – including the weeds. Dandelion and thistles are the most common weeds in this country, and they’re chock full of nectar, as well as having hollow stems that make the perfect shelter for them to rest in.
Make Bee Hotels
Once your bee friends are well-fed, they probably need somewhere to shelter before they make the journey back to their hive, or on to find more pollen. Bee hotels are easy to build and provide bees with a good shelter option. All you need is a wooden box, a few hollow stems of different diameters for bees to nest in, and something to hang the hotel with. It couldn’t be easier.
Provide a Good Water Source
Don’t forget that bees don’t just need nectar, they need water too. The key here is to create a shallow water source that gives bees plenty of ways to get out of the water once they’re in. A tray with a bit of water and a few rocks is all you need, and it gives the bees some solid ground to drink from. Top it up when needed and clean it from time to time, but that’s all you need to do.
Even though the weather is still a bit hit-and-miss, spring really is right around the corner. Bees are already out and about looking for new pollen sources, so now is the best time to revamp your garden with our buzzing friends in mind. Remember, bees are an important part of our environment, and without them, a lot of other creatures and plants will start to struggle. We hope you found these tips helpful, and if you’re interested in making a bee-friendly garden, please just get in touch with the team today and book your free consultation.
