Making my garden attractive for pollinators #hivegarden #gardenjournal
Yesterday I made a blog about backyard bumblebees. I've been trying to make my backyard attractive for pollinators because they are really having hard times at the moment.
The use of pesticides by farmers is destructive and kills complete bee colonies. And they also are attacked by invasive enemies like the Asian hornet.
And also a lot of people nowadays have their backyards fully paved which results in less flowers for the bees. And that is something I can change...
I have quite a lot of space where I place blossoming flowers which I especially have selected for attracting pollinators like bees and butterflies.
We need those insects. Without pollinators a lot of plants (especially fruits) won't survive!
Garden center
Last weekend I went to the garden center with my daughter and we bought quite a bunch of flowering plants. We've selected them on how useful they are for pollinators.
In the pots in the image below I used to have spices. But these always either dried out quickly or rotted away (although the pots have drainage).
Since I moved the spices on the ground, directly in soil, I had some empty pots.
So I bought some plants that can handle dry periods and attract bees. The purple ones are salvia. I forgot what type the others are.
I have a clear view on these pots through my kitchen window and I see lots of bees visiting the salvia. So it really helps.
My daughter wanted some more color in the backyard, so when she spotted some bigger salvia plants we had to bring them as well. We found two bigger pots with drainage and added them to our cart.
The salvia comes in two colors; purple and pink, so we bought one of both colors. They look really cool up close. I captured these with my macro lens.
Last year we already bought three lavender plants, which have survived the winter and have significantly increased in size.
But around the lavender we had some space without anything growing (except weeds), so we bought a couple of these Campanula Ambellas. You might see the influence of my daughter in choosing the colors š
The issue of 'too much black soil' needed to be fixed in more spots in the backyard, so we bought some more 'ground covering plants' like these Erodium xvariabile 'Bishop's Form'. What a name for a plant. But we liked the tiny flowers with the nice stripe pattern.
On the side of my garden I had a patch of soil where I seeded 'bees and butterflies' flower mix a couple of weeks ago. The patch has turned green now and the flowers are growing quite well. I wonder when the sea of green will turn into a sea of all colors.
And I've also thought of housing for the pollinators. I have an insect hotel that I have moved around the garden in the past years. It just didn't seem to be attracting guests... until last year. Last year I noticed carpenter bees entering the bamboo sticks. And after a few days I saw some of them were sealed. That means they created birth chambers for their eggs.
And a few days ago I saw some of the chambers have opened up. That means the birth of new baby bees ā¤ļøš
It's nice to be able to help nature a bit. It might be just a small thing, but if more people do this it might actually help the bees.
And in return they let me take photographs of them every now and then like this bumblebee that was enjoying the nectar of the salvia.
Do you also have a pollinator-friendly garden? Do you have some more tips on making mine even more friendly for them? Or did I inspire you to improve yours?
Iād love to hear your thoughts, so share your perspective in the comments!
the Erodium xvariabile does work very well on my balcony too :)
Strange name, but cute little flowers.
Crazy beautiful colors and I think the bees will like it as well. š
They surely do. I have seen a lot already visiting the new flowers.
The climate is also important, especially when I lived in the tropics. Our garden would be swarming with bees when the jasmine bloomedāthose little white flowers that look like orange blossoms. The passionfruit vine attracts cicadas, so I don't recommend it. Good luck!
Thanks! We don't have cicadas around here. I always associate them with holidays in Southern Europe š
Hola muy bello el jardin ,y tienes razon con lo q dijeste hay q cuidar las mariposas y las abejas ellas son necesaria para la naturaleza y mas las abejas q nos brinda su miel
Seeing bees actually using those bamboo tubes is pretty surprising. I would have thought theyād ignore it completely, that must be nice to notice over time though
It's a specific type of bee that uses them.
Oh ok I get it now
People just cut down trees, concrete their yards, pave the yard...
I have a simple method to help these little treasures.
I don't mow the grass regularly, I let the flowers sprout, the grass and only after a while do I mow it, and not all of it. In my yard there is still a part of the yard where there is chamomile and the surviving flowers, it hasn't been mowed. In the orchard as well.
In our neighbourhood they have 'May don't mow!' for public lawns. I think it even looks better than fresh cut grass. The lawns are full of flowers again.
Btw, this is another thing Joel says is not as great. Because it confuses the wild critters that move in the grass to either feed from it or live in it and then once the month is over the grass is cut and you end up actually doing more harm than good. It is best probably to have these wild flowery areas to be left as permanent features of the season.
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Same here.
I see a lot of bees in our garden, but then we have a good variety of flowers. They do like salvia, but also foxgloves, catnip and others. We allow some 'weeds' like verbascum, wild poppies and teasels to grow. We also do 'no mow May'. We have a couple of ponds, but have not seen any frogs recently. I have seen damselflies. I just enjoy seeing nature make use of the garden. Plus it's pretty.
It's really nice to have some life in your garden. In winter I try to get some more birds in my backyard by hanging some food for them.
I don't have a pond, but I did find a big toad recently. I brought him to a nearby pond.
I am not sure if you know of a Youtube channel called WildYourGardenWithJoelAshton, but there he shares a lot of tips for how to make your gardens more wildlife friendly, especially for wild pollinators. Your insect hotel reminded of the one he had in one a few of his videos.
I have noticed even now people confuse wild pollinators with honey bees. It is the wild pollinators that are struggling the most and the honey bees actually contribute to aggressively taking food away from the wild bees.
If I had a land on which I could make up my own rules depending on the size of it I would have some wild meadows that I would allow to go to bloom at least or on a smaller land a few grass islands that are allowed to go to bloom so that the bees can have even bigger variety of native plants. Also looking for more native plants to plant in your garden can help a lot not just for bees but also butterflies.
Thanks for the tip. I don't watch a lot of youtube, but I'll check out this channel!
I probably can do way better than I do now, but at least I'm doing something.
I did know about the honey bees indeed. I've been trying to make my backyard more diverse to help different types of insects. The hotel for the carpenter bees is one example of that.
What an excellent project. I like the idea of the bamboo hotel, and from the looks of it, the guests are nicely settling in.
They sell them in garden centers over here.
That makes things even easier. I live in the city, so my neighbours would not appreciate all the buzzing, but many people here keep them on rooftops. I hope you get to see it thrive into a full blown colony without any buzzing problems :)
I really enjoyed reading your post and looking at the beautiful photos.
Bees are so important for pollination and life on the planet that every action taken to protect them matters.
I loved your flower garden and the insect hotel. What great initiatives.
Daisies are also flowers that attract bees in large numbers. In the building where I live, thereās a vacant lot that used to be a park, where these plants cover almost the entire spaceāespecially during the rainy seasonāand many bees come, but people donāt like seeing it that way and have it cleaned up, not caring that theyāre harming both the plants and the bees.
Greetings @friendlymoose and thank you for sharing your experiences.
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Sometimes you just need to let nature take over an area.
It's not a small thing at all - it's huge. IF everyone did it there would be plenty of food for bees. Good work! And ammmmaazing you have some residents in your bee hotel!
It's small as in; it's an easy thing to do. But if more and more people will do it, it will make a difference.
Nice shot!