Gardeners Encouraged To Plant More Flowers To Help Bees Survive

Gardeners don’t have to shift to a beekeeping career to help the world’s bee population. The trick: plant more flowers and establish a better plant-honeybee relationship.



Plants rich in pollen and nectar need bees’ buzzing action, too. Although bees tend to target a single flower species during a foraging session, they do promote cross-pollination by moving from one plant to another.

Master beekeeper Jim Tunnell said that while not all gardeners are cut out to be beekeepers, the long-term wellness of bees along with other pollinators are everyone’s concern. "I think it's always a good thing to keep the pollinators in mind when we plant our gardens," he urged.

Here is how it works: bees gather nectar, pollen and water for making honey and survival in general. Pollen feeds them, water is tasked to cool the hives and dilute the honey for bee feeding and the nectar is stocked for overwintering – a time when they are faced with dormant flowering plants.

Mace Vaughan, spokesperson for Oregon-based Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, considers this move critically important. Honeybee hives delivering greater pollen diversity, he said, are more vigorous and better cope with forces such as pests, disease and even pesticides.

Vaughan added that since bees are active all year, natural nectar or pollen supply can run low at certain times. To help honeybee hives better thrive, gardeners should work to have blooms consistently available during the entire growing season.

Plants that love summer

Things will start heating up in the garden over the next couple of months and it will be time to reassess plants that cope and recover, and those that don’t.

If you are looking to replace plants that will survive the hottest spots in your garden, you can’t go past those with silver/grey foliage.

Here’s a couple of newcomers that may fit the bill.



Teucrium Silver Box

This is one of my favourite hero plants because of the combination of silver foliage and blue flowers.

It's a tough little plant that responds well to pruning but has a compact upright habit with silver foliage all year round.

The sky blue flowers appear in autumn through to early summer.

Teucrium prefers a full-sun position with added compost and manure to improve the soil. It’s an ideal plant for smaller gardens because it only grows to 1m high and 60cm wide.

Olive Garden Harvest

This is a dwarf fruiting olive that only grows to 1-2m in height, making it ideal for pots or as an edible hedge.

Grey-green foliage is the backdrop to small white flowers followed by masses of fruit in spring and summer, equally as suitable for the table as it is for oil. You would need quite a few plants to get your oil.

Olives prefer free-draining soil and a slow-release fertiliser. If they get too much nitrogen you will get lots of growth but little fruit.