What Can You Do To Attract Pollinators? 

Making your garden a riot of colour and variety will really help all pollinators.  The plant list in by no means exhaustive – we all know what a huge variety exists these days. Some have been from ‘The Garden Jungle: Gardening to save the Planet’, by Professor Dave Goulson.  A paperback and at £9.99 great value for money.  There is much debate about sticking only to native species, which would disappoint many of us when it came to designing perennial borders, but Prof. Goulson observes 

“It seems intuitive that planting natives is better than planting non-natives, but I don’t see any reason to get obsessive about it.” 

Heartening advice, but do avoid any kind of ‘double bloom’ as they have fewer anthers so insects and bees find these very difficult to penetrate.   

Our propensity for tidiness removes the protection offered to caterpillars and moth pupae, along with spiders and all sorts of other beneficial creepy crawlies.  Standing dead herbaceous matter looks stunning when frosted or sparkling with dewy cobwebs and the dead matter acts as root protection.  

Some of the plants on this list will also help moths, as will valerian, catmint, evening primrose, sweet rocket, jasmine & honeysuckle.

A reminder – do not cut back dead herbaceous growth in Autumn.  

• Aconites (family Rununculacea: with their dainty little yellow flowers, these are one of the earliest nectar providers.
• Bluebells (Hyacinthoides): avoid the Spanish variety at all costs as they are viscous spreaders. 
• Bush vetch (Vicia sepium): a member of pea family, native climbing perennial, small purple flowers and often found in wildflower meadows.
• Catmint (Nepeta racemose): lilac flowers, Nepeta. N. faasenii ‘Six Hills Giant’ is great for long-tongued bees.  Cottage Garden classic and cats also love it!
• Comfrey (Symphtyum officinale ‘Bocking 14’): hardy perennial, tall (1.5m) so great at back of border, flowers May to August.  Can also be chopped down regularly to make a great compost.  CB: you can also soak it in water and let it break down to make a ‘fertiliser’ but be warned – it’s smelly – so place the tub out of the way somewhere!
• Cyclamen (family Primulacea): great Spring nectar source.
• Dahlia ‘Bishop of llandaff’: deep red flowers from July.  Needs lifting or mulching in winter if on heavy soil.  Other dahlias are good but avoid ‘cactus’ or ‘pompom’ varieties or any other kind of plant with a double-headed flower; the bees can’t access the pollen easily.
• Field Scabious (Knautia arvensis): many species available but this native one is good.  Knautia Macedonia is a superb addition to any perennial border and is a super cut flower.
• (Meadow) Cranesbill (Geranium pratense): most hardy geraniums are great for bees.  This is the typical wildflower meadow variety. For pereniila borders and fantastic ground cover, Geranium  ‘Roxanne’ is super;  it tumbles well over raised beds and provides great ground cover on the flat – purply blue flowers from July to first frost.
• Giant Hyssop (Agastache foeniculum ‘Blackadder’, Blue Fortune’ & ‘Blue Boa’: needs well-drained soil so no good for our clay.  Grows to about 1m with spikes of blue flowers in the summer.
• Lavender (Lavendula): lavender is a tricky choice and needs good maintenance in terms of rigorous pruning.  Avoid Spanish lavender at all costs and French Lavender isn’t as hardy as English lavender.  There are many, many varieties of Lavender but not all are hardy and be aware, there’s a difference between ‘frost hardy’ and hardy, with hardy being the sturdiest and often able to survive in -15C.  ‘Hidcote’ Blue’ is a super example, average height (45-60cm) and lasts for 20 years if well maintained and not on clay.  Visit the website for Downderry Nursery (National lavender collection) and research what variety you want before trotting off to the garden centre and being overwhelmed.., or buying something that won’t survive winter.  Downderry is also a great place for bulk buying (www.downderry-nursery.co.uk).  Downderry also stock a wide variety of Rosemary.
• Lungwort (Pulmonaria’ Blue Ensign’, ‘Trevi Fountain’: povides early spring nectar.  Easy to grow and happy in semi shade or full sun.
• Marjoram (Origanum vulgare): easy, happy in pots or soil.  Native.  Avoid variegated and golden varieties.  Does self-seed and needs some management.
• Michaelmas Daisies: great as an Autumn nectar source.
• Plume thistle (Cirsum rivulare ‘Atropurpurem’): great for male bumblebees in high summer.  Not spiny but does spread and take over so needs management.
• Pussy Willow (Salix caprea): native, growing to 10m+. Best to grow a male variety if possible as the males produce pollen and some nectar, whereas the female only produces nectar.  Dwarf & weeping varieties available for smaller gardens.
• Sicilian honey garlic (Allium siculum): all Alliums (including chives) are pretty fantastic for bees as the pollen is very accessible, but Prof. Goulsen recommends this as the best.  Claire Benn has a wholesale account with De Jager bulbs, so contact her if you’re looking to buy Alliums (or indeed any bulbs) in bulk.
• Sneezewort (Helenium ‘Moorheim Beauty’): this is a super variety.  Gorgeous rust orange colour, keeps going if you dead-head. Happy on free-draining sand but may not survive heavy clay. 
• Snowdrops (Galanthus): great as a spring nectar source.
• Thyme (Thymus polytrichussubsp. Britannicus): Prof. Goulsen recommends this variety as the best for pollinators. A low-growing, rambling perennial that’s happy in a pot or as ground cover.
• Viper’s bugloss (Echium vulgare): prefers sandy, free-draining soil.  A lovely plant gets to about 1m and the flowers are a glorious blue, followed by an elegant seed pod.

Chemically toxic Plants

Be careful about where you buy your plants. Prof.  Dave Goulson was suspicious about the slightly unnatural “rude health” of plants obtained in some garden centres.  He decided to undertake a study and purchased across about 6 garden centres (including places such as B&Q ). He had heard rumours that the greenhouses the plants were reared in relied heavily on the use of pesticides.  He raised funds to conduct a scientific analysis with depressing and disturbing results: most of the plants contained a cocktail of pesticides (usually fungicides and insecticides).   

Only two out of the 29 plants tested contained no pesticides.  70% contained neonicotinoids, pesticides that are notorious for their harmful effect on bees and for having a long persistence in the environment.  As a result of learning about this, we contacted a couple of local nurseries/plant centres to establish whether their nursery plants have been pre-treated with chemicals.  Here’s what they said:  

Buckland Nurseries
We are very environmentally conscious, use no chemicals on site and make every effort to buy from reliable growers, but cannot guarantee organic”.   

De Jager Bulbs
Only use pesticides in extremis to save a crop. 

GrowSmiles
Holly, the owner of GrowSmiles, currently grows 60% of the plants herself and hope to increase that percentage.  I do not use any chemicals and use peat free compost.  I try to buy organic seed but it is not always possible.  The other 40% is split pretty much equally between another grower who follows the same principles as me and the other 20% are from wholesale nurseries who import plants I would think it’s safe to say these are most likely pre-treated with chemicals.   

Knights
“Thank you for your detailed enquiry. I have requested as much information as possible from the plant teams, but it is not a straightforward question to answer immediately, with so many different plants from multiple different growers. Additionally, it is likely that some plants will have started life with a propagation specialist before being grown on at a different nursery.  I should say from the outset that we aim to provide good quality plants, but we are not an organic plant specialist and we do not currently undertake any growing at either of our sites (Betchworth and Godstone). As a relatively small business we are not in a position to dictate production techniques to the growers that we use, but we do expect them to follow current best practice, which in many cases will involve deployment of biological controls over the use of pesticides. I do not believe that there currently exists a good supply of organic plants to the trade within the UK, but I will ask further on this subject within our team. Some smaller growers do specialise in this area, and the RHS has a list of some they are aware of here?.

RHS
“thank you for getting in touch with us … we expect you to have received a reply within 10 working days …”  We still haven’t heard from them, 3 months later, but we’ll chase them!

Sarah Raven
“Please be advised our nursery avoids using pesticides and fungicides as much as possible and it is highly unlikely that any product used on plants in the nursery would persist and affect bees in your garden, but occasionally we do need to use a product to save a crop. ?We aim to use products that pose the least threat to non-target insects and which do not persist after the plant has been despatched.