Gardening for bees: top tips

When you think of a pollinator-friendly garden, no doubt an image of flowers buzzing with bees springs to mind. The flowers you choose are vital in providing food for the likes of bees, beetles and butterflies. While they don’t have to be native, take care not to introduce any invasive plants.  And most importantly, go for a wide variety from different families, which will in turn attract different insects.  

• Members of the daisy family (Asteraceae), the carrot family (Apiaceae), the teasel family (Dipsacaceae) and the rose family (Rosaceae) are all very attractive to bees and hoverflies but also contain lots of different shapes, seedheads and colours to keep things interesting in your garden. 
• Plants in the mint family (Lamiaceae) are also beloved of bees. 
• Fill in the gaps with annuals and biennials – try scattering wildflower seeds such as poppies and cornflowers around your flowerbeds for a burst of colour in early summer.

When picking flowering plants, choose ones with single flowers, meaning a single layer of petals. Believe it or not, but double flowers can stop insects from accessing pollen and nectar, so while they might look amazing, they aren’t much use to pollinators.

You might be surprised to find out that honeybees don’t hibernate, which means they need access to nectar and pollen even during the winter. While winter-flowering plants are relatively limited in choice, this is a great opportunity to extend the season of interest in your garden, while also helping honeybees and other insects that emerge early from hibernation. 

• You could plant bulbs such as crocuses or winter-flowering shrubs such as Oregon grape (Mahonia x media) and Japanese quince (Chaenomeles speciosa). My favourite winter-flowering perennial, lungwort (Pulmonaria spp), is also the favourite plant of the hairy-footed flower bee, which can be seen zig-zagging between the flowers on sunny days in February. At the other end of the year, there are plenty of fantastic plants that flower well into autumn, creating a colourful display with bountiful food for insects. 
• No space? Get creative with window boxes to attract bees – try wildflowers or herbs in a sunny, south-facing window box, or violas and Tiarella for shady or north-facing windows. Or what about a winter-flowering shrub in a pot by the front door?

As well as pollen-laden flowers, bugs also need places to overwinter and hide from predators. Look for species of trees with interesting bark, which has lots of gaps in which insects can hide – some of our native trees support thousands of different insect species. Or if you don’t have room for trees, shrubs and climbers also create excellent shelter for bugs.

Now for the good news: the less you do, the more wildlife will benefit. Bees and other pollinating insects are usually on the wing when plants are flowering, but that doesn’t mean they just disappear for the rest of the year – many complete their lifecycles in hollow stems or nests within the soil, or tucked up within the undergrowth.

Your plants might have died back for the winter, but their structures are important places for larvae to overwinter, so leave old stems uncut for as long as possible. There’s a reward for you, too: not only does this mean less work, but different types of seed heads create a beautiful effect in heavy frost or with the winter sun behind them. If you must cut down the old stems, pile them up in a corner so they’re still of use to insects.

Bug hotels, bog gardens and compost heaps all provide shelter and nesting sites for insects – and you don’t need to spend any money. If you haven’t got time to create your own bug hotel, simply put a pile of sticks and leaves in an undisturbed corner, or a bank of soil in a north-facing spot could become home to overwintering solitary bees.

Controversially, you should love your weeds! Dandelions are an amazing nectar and pollen source in late winter when nothing else is flowering. You’ll see them covered in bees and pollen beetles in early spring so resist the urge to pull them out or mow them off. Nettles are a food plant for more than 40 butterfly and moth species – if you can leave a patch at the back of the garden, insects will be grateful.

Wildlife in balance helps your garden to look after itself. Take your cue from nature: too much of one thing (usually bad!) indicates an imbalance somewhere. For example, if you’re overrun with aphids – introduce plants that attract predatory insects such as hoverflies and wasps, which in turn will eat your aphids. 

On the subject of pesticides… If you must spray, be specific. Look for products that target the thing(s) you want to get rid of, rather than using sprays that kill everything. Many soft-bodied insect pests can be controlled with dilute washing-up liquid (we use a professional version here at Eden). Birds are very good pest control, so don't forget to keep them coming to your garden.