To ask you to help the bees? 🐝

[DowntonCrabby]

Not really AIBU, more for traffic than a bossy demand.

I pledge to make my garden much more friendly this year for bees and other pollinators.

I have a lot of outdoor space at work that I can hopefully encourage more bees into too.

Anyone with me?

need to look into what is good for bees

Well, I have the following in my gardens:

• fruit trees (apples, cherries, pears, nectarine, apricot, fig)
• blackberries and raspberry
• dwarf buddleja
• camomile
• crocus
• snowdrops
• clematis
• lavender
• violas
• hebe
• heuchera
• aquilegia
• Jacobs ladder
• scabious
• Thrift
• Campanula
• Erodium
• strawberries
• mossy saxifrage
• California lilac
• purple loosestrife
• Aster
• Godetia
• Alyssum
• lobelia
• Geum
• Achillea
• Most perennial herbs

And the bees like all of them.

I also have simple style roses which bees typically ignore, gladioli (ignored) and frilly roses which are unusable.

I have grown Erysium Bowles mauve, poached egg plant and calendula before and they like them too

I'm in but I also have a toddler and am twitchy about him being so close that he irritates the bees!
I have some lupins that have started to come up already. If I list can someone tell me if I'm putting the right stuff in.
I have bamboo (which I know doesn't count!)
Faux orange blossom
Acer
Dwarf azalea x2 (one is over forty years old and I brought it with me from my old home)
Bush fuscia
Dwarf rose
Climbing jasmine and honeysuckle
Some iris and similar types
Pinks
Delphinium
Another that's tall and has spread well in just one year with red and white flowers. I feel it's a type of lobelia and also one that's like a big daisy but again I can't remember the name. (I really should write them down!)
And we also have a large wooden planter about ten foot by four that I shove loads of summer bedding plants in and a couple of hanging baskets. I love lavender but hate how 'leggy' it gets after a year or two. I'm debating some large dahlia for their longevity.
I'm not a natural gardener and mostly they have to be strong or they don't last!

Reading this has made me wonder if a pile of logs added into the corner behind the sunken trampoline would be good for bugs? It's a dark, damp area.

I'm doing this in a small city garden after realising I had not seen a bee in 10years here. Growing up semi rurally, we had a lavender bush that grew to be humongous. I have fond memories of sunbathing nearby & the gorgeous smell of lavender combined with lots of happy little bees.

I have heard that Azalea/Rhododendron are poisonous to bees....

Also, with lavender, it needs a harsh pruning once or twice a year right back to the tiniest green buds at the bottom of the plant, light pruning will result in rapid woodiness. Be ruthless!

Reading with interest. My garden is pretty messy so it would be good to call it a wildlife garden rather than just 'no time to clear the undergrowth' garden. What time of year should I prune my lavenders? I am planning to plan nasturtiums this year so hopefully that will be good for them. I have a fish pond (was here when we moved in), not ideal for wildlife so I'd like to have a little wildlife pond as well. I have reared tadpoles in a plastic box mini pond before and released lots of very cute little froglets but would like something more permanent. Not sure whether to get the smallest size of prefab pond or whether it would be a pain trying to dig a hole the exact shape of the prefab pond. Sorry straying from the bee topic a bit! Will look into bee water sources.

Ps I have plenty of bamboo in the garden so wonder whether I could make my own bee house using chopped up bits of bamboo? Does anyone have a useful link to guidelines for what is needed in a bug house? The ones I've seen look like bits of bamboo stuck together but maybe there's more to it than that!

Will definitely be doing anything I can to help the bees this year. I love bees as soon as I see one I feel like summer is on its way.

Providing water for bees is a great idea particularly in hot weather- it's lovely to see a row of bees with their little red tongues sticking out like straws! You need to provide somewhere safe for them to stand and drink, and they find water by smell so water that is stagnant and full of algae is popular.

I personally cut lavender to half height in late September then practically ground level (just above the tiny green buds at the bottom) in early March

Thank you doggy - job for the weekend then!