Flowers for the bees
I
can easily imagine how a beehive would be an essential part of a
cottager's garden since they probably had no other source of
concentrated sugar. Due to the ubiquity of bees in the cottage
garden, Christopher Lloyd's The
Cottage Garden contains a whole section on bee-attracting plants.
Christopher Lloyd
recites the common wisdom that the mint and aster
families are bee favorites, but goes on to add several other species
that are a must for bee habitat. Crocuses and willows are on his
list as good sources of early spring pollen, allowing the hive to
quickly build up their numbers so that they'll be ready for the
summer rush. Speaking of the summer rush, Hydrangea
villosa,
basswood, borage, fennel, thyme, sage, clematis, and white
clover are
all given pride of place as bee-friendly summer flowers. Finally,
Christopher Lloyd notes that fall-blooming Sedums are important
nectar-providers.
I tend to overlook
flowers in the garden, but will have to consider
adding some of these top bee plants to nooks and crannies over the next
few years.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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