Honey plantsshould be planted in gardens because of their wonderful flowers and the possibility of attracting beneficial insects. Insects will have a constant source of nectar and pollen, and we will have an extraordinary experience while observing butterflies, bees and bumblebees visiting the garden. Meet the besthoney plants for the garden- colorful flowers, fragrant herbs, flowering perennials, trees and shrubs, which are great for bees!
Honey plants attract bees, bumblebees and butterflies
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Honey-bearing annuals
Annual flowers are a simple way tointroduce honey plants to your garden . They delight with diversity, habit, color and smell, and are a source of nectar for beneficial insects.
One of the most famous annuals is the Tagetes, native to Mexico. The most common isMarigold(Tagetes patula), which has low substrate requirements. It tolerates transplanting well throughout the growing season. The most popular are low varieties reaching 15-30 cm in height. It is an ideal plant for planting on flower beds, borders as well as in containers.
The narrow-leaved marigold(Tagetes tenuifolia) belongs to the short, compact habit. It has small single-structure inflorescence baskets. The flowers can be yellow, orange-yellow or red-brown in color. They stay on the plant until frost, being useful for bees in late autumn.
The tagetes 'Nana'
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Another interesting annual honey plant isspiny kleome (Cleome spinosa) , native to America. This plant, up to 1.50 m high, has highly branched shoots and white, pink or purple flowers with an original structure gathered in loose clusters. Kleome looks good in large groups against the backdrop of the lawn. It can be used as a cut flower as the flowers are stable for about two weeks.
Spiny Kleome - Cleome spinosa
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Another interesting plant is the strongly fragrantsweet reseda (Reseda odorata)Rezeda fragna comes from North Africa. It has light green leaves, small bright yellow or aquamarine flowers gathered in dense clusters. It can be sown under windows or near gazebos. The scent of its flowers not only attracts insects but is also perceptible and very pleasant to people.
Rezeda wonna - Reseda odorata
Fig. Hekerui, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
The plants whose flowers surround swarms of bees and bumblebees includeEchium vulgareIt is a biennial plant recommended especially for natural gardens, but also for perennial beds. It sprouts, grows and blooms extremely quickly, so it is often the first decoration on a perennial bed. The flowers stay on the plant from May to September, turning red to deep blue. It reaches a height of 25 to 100 cm. Prefers a sunny position where it blooms profusely. Prefers neutral, fertile and moist soils.
Echium vulgare
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Perennial honey-bearing perennials
Perennials offer great opportunities to create insect-friendly places.One of my favorites that I would like to recommend isgarden yummy (Monarda hybrida)It is a plant with extremely low requirements. It grows up to 1 meter high and has white, red, purple or yellowish flowers gathered in heads. The headworm is good for both sunny and shady locations, as well as wet and dry soils. It looks good in a perennial bed in the company of delphiniums, rudbeckia, golden or sunflowers. Easily reproduces by sowing seeds, dividing plants or runners.
Garden Pysznogłówka - Monarda hybrida
Fig. pixabay.com
A perennial eagerly visited by insects, especially colorful butterflies, isorange tongue (Ligularia dentata)It is a tall plant, reaching even 150 cm in height. In mid-August, huge orange flowers appear, contrasting interestingly with the round, dark leaves and remain decorative until October.Requires a moist and fertile soil. It does not tolerate long-term sun exposure.
A beautiful perennial that forms dense thickets iscatnip (Nepeta) , growing up to 30-40 cm in height. It has silvery green leaves that are very fragrant. Depending on the variety, it can have white, pink or purple-blue flowers, blooms from July to September. Likes sunny places with slightly moist, well-drained soil. It is suitable as vegetation on the edge of a flower bed, or to cover the soil in sunny places. It goes well with roses.
Catnip is a honey plant that attracts bees
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Besides being a honey plant, catnip is also very fond of cats. Hence its name.
An interesting honey plant for perennial beds , attracting bees and butterflies, is Echinacea purpurea, originating from North America.This beautiful perennial blooms pinkish purple from June to October. Echinacea grows best in fertile, humus, moderately moist soil, in a sunny position. It will also feel good in a semi-shaded position. It grows up to 1.5 meters in height. Perfect for a cut flower. Despite the height to which it grows up, it does not require supports. It can be propagated from seeds or by dividing the root in spring.
A plant that used to be found in rural gardens and is now returning to favor isgailardia aristata (Gaillardia aristata)It grows from 30 to 75 cm in height. Perennial with long, stiff, hairy stems, branched from below, with oblong lanceolate leaves. It has single, double and tricolor flowers set on long stalks. It blooms for a very long time, from July to October. All flowers have to be cut above the leaves in September. Suitable for cut flowers. It is an undemanding plant, it is enough to provide it with moderately moist soil and a sunny position.
Gailardia oscista - Gaillardia aristata
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When discussing honey-bearing perennials, it is impossible not to mentionlavender (Lavandula angustifolia) , which, apart from utility and herbal values, has extraordinary aesthetic qualities. Lavender is a bushy shrub on the border of perennials and shrubs. It creates dense, regular clumps, reaching a height of 45 to 60 cm. It has decorative silvery leaves and pink, light purple or bluish purple flowers. It blooms from June to October. Thanks to its habit, it is perfect for borders and low hedges.
Lavender attracts bees, bumblebees and butterflies to the garden
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It also looks great on perennial beds, rock gardens, balconies and terraces. Due to its smell, it is worth planting it near rest places, e.g.around the gazebos. Needs a sunny position and well-drained, well-drained, dry soil with a high calcium content. Every year after flowering, lavender pruning needs to be done to keep the lavender dense, compact and grow well. It is an evergreen plant that requires winter cover.
Another interesting perennial isDictamnus albusAn extremely decorative plant, it reaches a height of 60 to 120 cm. The decoration of dyptam are gorgeous pink or white flowers, star-like seed heads and feathery leaves. Contains flammable essential oils that make it smell like lemon. In hot climates, the secreted oils can self-ignite, hence the common name of the plant - the burning bush of Moses. It blooms from May to July. It is best to plant in a sunny position, in sandy and humus calcareous soil. It looks good as a solitaire, planted among ornamental shrubs or in perennial beds. Ash-leaf dyptam is a frost-resistant plant that does not require winter cover.
Ash-leaf dyptam - Dictamnus albus
Fig. depositphotos.com
A very durable plant for sunny positions isAmerican milkweed (Asclepias syriaca)I would recommend it especially for large gardens, because this plant grows strongly, but you can limit its expansiveness by planting a large a container sunk into the ground. It has lanceolate leaves and maroon flowers gathered in large umbels. Milkweed flowers smell pleasantly and are eagerly visited by insects. They bloom in June - July and bloom until August. It is frost-resistant and undemanding to the soil.
One of the most honey-bearing plants isCommon Echinops ( Echinops ritro )reaching a height of 120-150 cm. It has spherical blue inflorescences that persist on the plant from July to September. The thistle leaves are green on the top and silvery on the underside. It grows well in loose, well-drained, sandy soil containing a lot of calcium.Echinops prefer a dry and sunny position. It is fully frost-resistant. Perfect for naturalistic plantings. It goes very well with taller coniferous shrubs or plants with maroon foliage, e.g. barberry. Suitable for dry bouquets.
Echinacea accompanied by purple coneflower
Fig. depositphotos.com
Interesting perennials also include:very vigorous orange hawk (Hieracium aurantiacum), long-leaved speedwell (Veronica longif.webpolia), blue polemonium (Polemonium coeruleum) with blue or purple flowers, less often white, virginian triple (Tradescantia virginica) with beautiful blue flowers.
Honey herbs
If you want to encourage insects to visit our garden, it is also worth introducing herbs. You can create specially separated herbal beds, but you can also incorporate herbs into existing perennial beds.
One of the honey-giving herbs is sage (Salvia officinalis) - an extremely durable plant, woody from the bottom. It should be planted in permeable soil with a low calcium content. Perfect for a rock garden or for herbal discounts. Depending on the variety, it turns gold-green to brown-red.
Medicinal sage - Salvia officinalis
Fig. W alter Pöder, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons
Another honey-giving herb is peppermint (Mentha piperita), a hardy plant that prefers airy, sunny place, although it also tolerates partial shade well. It grows well in fertile and moist soil. It looks nice around the pond.
A winter-hardy plant eagerly visited by bees is the common thyme (Thymus vulgaris), it is a plant for sunny locations and poor soil, it does not tolerate calcium in the substrate. Thyme forms small creeping or straight-growing bushes.It has hard small leaves and a strong fragrance. Thyme flowers are tiny, pale pink or mauve pink, gathered in the leaf axils at the top of the stems.
Butterfly visiting blooming thyme flowers
Fig. depositphotos.com
A plant without which I cannot imagine my herb garden is lemon balm (Melissa officinalis). It is a herb with a lemon-like scent, it grows to a height of about 90 cm. It has white or yellowish flowers that appear from June to September and are often visited by bees. The oval leaves are light green in color. It feels well in a semi-shaded, sunny position on humus soil. For the winter, it is a good idea to cover the lemon balm with half-matured compost.
Honey bush
Budleja Dawida (Buddleja davidii)is a honey-bearing shrub native to temperate and tropical regions of East Asia, South America and Africa.This shrub, which grows up to a height of 3 meters, has small flowers gathered in long, dense inflorescences. Flowering lasts from early August until October. Depending on the variety, budlei flowers are white, yellow, orange, pink, blue, purple or purple in color. Thanks to this variety of colors, we can create colorful bouquets in the garden, for example by planting three different-colored plants together. It will give an amazing effect, catching the eyes of passers-by.The pleasant scent of budlei attracts hundreds of butterflies , hence it is often called a butterfly bush.
Budleja Dawida - Buddleja davidii
Fig. pixabay.com
This shrub is best planted in a sunny, quiet corner of the garden, on clay-sandy soil with a pH close to neutral. In hot weather, it requires abundant watering. During the growing season, it should be fed 2-3 times with multi-component fertilizers. Because budleja is not resistant to frost, it must be covered with a mound of earth, bark, sawdust or leaves for the winter.Usually the shoots above the mound freeze, but it does not matter much, as the bush has to be trimmed shortly every year at the turn of April and May. Budleja grows very quickly, reaching a height of 1.5 meters in August.
Another reliable garden plant is barberry, also in the form of evergreen shrubs. One of the most beautiful shrubs in home gardens is Thunberg's barberry (Berberis thunbergii)from Japan. Reaches a height of up to 2 meters. It has unusually intense orange and scarlet leaves in autumn. At the turn of May and June, it is covered with single, brownish-yellow flowers. In autumn, elliptical, scarlet fruit, which remains on the shrub for a long time, even throughout the winter, is an ornament. Suitable for low hedges. It prefers moderately moist soil with a slightly acidic reaction. He is not demanding on his position.
Berberis thunbergii - Berberis thunbergii
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A beautiful, frost-resistant, evergreen, honey-bearing shrub for shaded sites ismahonia (Mahonia aquifolium) , reaching a height of 1 meter and coming from North America. Its all-year decoration is lamellar, shiny leaves, which turn brown and red in autumn and winter. Yellow flowers gathered in clusters appear at the turn of April and May. In September, dark blue-black fruits ripen, eagerly eaten by birds, covered with a light blue coating. It is best planted in secluded places, on moist, light, sandy and loamy-sandy soils with a high humus content. Mahogany common is ideal for shaded positions, but it can also be planted in sunny places. However, you have to take into account that in such conditions it may freeze. Older shrubs do not tolerate transplanting well, so they should be moved to a new position together with the root ball.
Common mahonia - Mahonia aquifolium
Fig. freeimages.com
A slightly forgotten shrub worth returning to our gardens isBlackthorn (Prunus spinosa)It is a shrub a bit troublesome because it creates a lot of outgrowths. However, I think that you should not give up growing it, because its white flowers in April, and then the beautiful blue fruits that appear in the fall, are one of a kind. Blackthorn plum is undemanding and resistant to frost and drought, it only needs a sunny position. It is a long-lived plant. Blackthorn flowers contain camphor oil. The caterpillars of the queen's pages feed on its leaves. Frozen blackthorn fruits are suitable for making very good wines.
A well-known and widely cultivated shrub used for hedges isSiberian Caragana (Caragana arborescens)A fast growing plant with a compact habit. From May to June it creates bunches of yellow, papilionaceous flowers.Extremely nectarious and pollen-bearing, it is eagerly flown by bees. Siberian karagana tolerates poor, dry and rocky substrates, shows high tolerance to soil pH, but feels good in sunny positions. It tolerates air pollution very well. He doesn't like overdoing it.
The wonderful bush 'Variegata'
Fig. depositphotos.com
One of theearliest flowering shrubs suitable for small gardens , attracting beneficial insects, is the shrub (Weigela)It is a fairly dense shrub growing up to 2.5 meter high, with bell-shaped, magnificent, colorful flowers, changing color with flowering. In late summer, it often repeats flowering. It looks nice in the company of other flowering shrubs, it is also a good background for perennials blooming in summer. It also looks good as a solitaire, or planted in a row on an unformed hedge.
Weigela grows best in permeable, fertile, moderately moist, neutral or slightly acidic soils. It tolerates drought and polluted air well, therefore it is recommended as ahoney plant for planting in citiesIt blooms poorly in semi-shaded places, so when expecting abundant flowering, it is better to choose a sunny position for it. Also for this purpose, every year, just after flowering, the shoots should be trimmed, and the oldest, the least blooming ones should be shortened or removed. This treatment is necessary becausethe shrub blooms on annual shootsIn winter, the base of the bush must be protected against frost with leaves, compost or soil. If, however, the bush is frozen, it must be cut short in spring. After such a cut, Weigela regenerates quickly.
Red currant - Ribes sanguineum
Fig. Patrice78500, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons
A beautiful honey-bearing shrub , underestimated in home gardens is the red currant (Ribes sanguineum), native to North America.It is a shrub with upright, stiff branches, flowering pink or blood red before the leaves develop. Dark blue fruit with a strong, light wax coating attract birds to our garden in late autumn and winter. It is best grown in fertile, warm and well-drained soils, in sunny positions with southern and south-western exposure. Resistant to fungal diseases.
Young 1-year-old and 2-year-old shrubs as well as freshly planted shrubs should be well covered by covering them with mounds of soil, peat or garden bark, or by tying the plants after the first frost with straw mats or corrugated cardboard.
Broom broom - Cytisus scoparius
Fig. Javier martin, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons
Bushes attracting insects to the gardenare also: broom broom (Sarothamnus scoparius), ideal for moors; American bird cherry (Prunus serotina), suitable for large gardens, with fruit perfect for alcohol tinctures; southern mosquitoes (Colutea arborescen s) with bright yellow flowers; shrubby amphora, another name - shrub indigo (Amorpha fruticosa), a not very picky plant with dark purple-purple flowers; he spiked Henry (Eleutherococcus sieboldianus), still not very popular plant, which is a pity because it is extremely decorative and undemanding.
Honey-bearing trees
If you plan larger plantings and are looking for seedlings of honey trees for your garden, I recommendsmall-leaved linden (Tilia mordata)Lime, whose beauty was once appreciated by our poet from Czarnolas, Jan Kochanowski. It will be nice to sit in the shade of this tree one day and inhale the intense sweet scent of its flowers. However, it is a tree for large gardens as it can be up to 40 meters high. Produces a straight trunk. In youth it has a smooth, greenish-gray bark, which becomes shallow and longitudinally fissured, dark gray with age. Linden leaves are heart-shaped with a serrated edge. It has characteristic light yellow flowers in loose umbels, blooming at the turn of June and July. The fruit is small, round and smooth. It is fully frost-resistant.
Bees visiting a blooming apple tree
Fig. pixabay.com
Another interestinghoney-bearing tree for large gardens , issycamore maple (Acer pseudoplatanus)with a wide spherical crown and flaky bark .Thick, five-flap leaves, turning yellow or orange in autumn. The insects flock to the yellowish greenish flowers hanging in clusters, emerging in May after the leaves unfold.
Another tree worth planting, this time even in a smaller garden, isrobinia viscosa (Robinia viscosa) Tree grows up to 6-12 m high, with a spherical shape of the crown. The bark on the shoots is light brown and smooth, but the youngest growths are covered with glandular, sticky hairs. The leaves are composed of 13-21 ovoid leaflets, dark green on top and gray-green underneath. The robinia ornaments are pale pink flowers, gathered in short clusters, developing in June. In the second half of summer, it blooms less abundantly. Its advantage is that its crown can be formed into an umbrella-like shape. It looks beautiful as a solitaire, as well as in the company of a small composition of dwarf plants.
A bee was attracted to the garden by a blooming cherry tree
Fig. pixabay.com
QualityHoney-bearing tree for small gardens , perfectly grafted on a trunk, extremely decorativewillow and var. Pendula (Salix caprea Pendula) , bringing the first garden decorations in early spring, silver-gray cats. After flowering, the flowers of the liva take on a yellow color and exude a sweet scent around it. Willow cats have an underestimated importance for the world of insects, it is the first benefit for bees after their winter rest. Its leaves are eaten by, among others, caterpillars of butterflies. This willow grows quickly and is undemanding, the only thing we need to provide it is a sunny place and fresh, moist soil. It looks impressive near ponds.
Noteworthy aesthetic qualities add to the gardenrowan (Sorbus aucuparia)It is a small tree up to 15 m high, characterized by smooth silver-gray bark. The dull-green leaves turn golden yellow to red-yellow in autumn. They smell like bitter almonds when rubbed.Rowanberry forms outstretched umbels of white flowers. Rowan fruits are small, spherical, red or orange corals gathered in clusters. The fruits are edible, they have a bitter taste. In order to get rid of bitterness, it is enough to freeze the collected fruit slightly.
For small gardens, I can also recommendtall aralia (Aralia elata)with white flowers gathered in corymbose reaching a height of 8m, orKorean evodia (Tetradium danielli)- a short 7 meter tree, blooming profusely from July to August.
