What plant do bees and butterflies love the most in your garden?

[Liquorish]

I always see them at the lavender, sunflowers and verbena in my garden. I have limited space but I’d love to plant some more thing this year that would benefit them.

My cherry blossom tree when it’s in blossom.

I have some early flowering heather that was very popular with bees a couple of months back.

Oregano!

They love my passion flower

I have a huge Buddleia they love

I have Welsh poppies taking over in my garden and there's always a few fuzzy bumblebees rolling around in them making happy buzzing noises

My rosemary starts flowering in December, and it is one of the only things in flower at the beginning of the year, and carries on flowering till around midsummer. Bees adore it. They are also fond of honeysuckle and foxgloves, and my big cotoneaster (although that won't flower this year as it had to have a drastic prune). The buddleia is popular with butterflies and moths.

Wall germander, it hums when in flower. Up to a dozen different bee types seen on it (we had to borrow a fancy bee identification book).

Cat mint, thyme, oregano, borage, cosmos, Erysimum 'Bowles.

I had a gorgeous purple hebe that was massive. It had obviously been there for years - maybe even decades. Unfortunately the frost got it this year. I’m gutted. I’ve had to cut it right back in the hope it will regrow.

anyway I digress. The bees loved it and it was mostly hardy apart from this years damp one. I think it was garden beauty, but it was here when I got here.

I've tried to make sure they have something all season. So crab apple in spring. Lavender in summer. And I let a bit of rosemary flower which they appear to like. Then fushia as it lasts into the autumn, or at least to first frost.

Nasturtiums, foxgloves and heather

I was going to say Welsh poppies too! The bees literally roll around on their backs inside the flower.

All of it! Planting has been with the bees in mind. Season starts with Heather (some still going strong), then crocus, grape hyacinth, moving through the rhododendrons and azaleas (all still going strong now) and coming in there are the aliums, poppies, gladioli, sea Holly, globe thistle and lillies. Last will be the jasmine and honeysuckle ! I will be planting more shrubs once a huge tree which shades most of the garden is thinned or removed. I love the bees and they seem pretty pleased with me!

Fruit and veg is good and easy to sprinkle a seed packet amongst the flowers. Beans, peas, squash, and the things that run to seed in hot weather like lettuce, rocket, mustard always get tonnes of attention from bees. My green manure patch always hums with bees, you can actually hear them from a distance away, that's usually phacelia, borage, clover and mustard. They are really fast flowering seeds and good value as you get a bigger pack if it's for green manure. Also I find they all self seed and overwinter well for earlier flowers too. I sow them everywhere. I also have a lot of bumble bees on Cirsium rivulare atropurpureum at the moment too.

They love the poppies at the allotment https://www.sarahraven.com/products/papaver-somniferum-dark-plum last year. There'd be 6 or 7 bees in each one.

Also poached egg plants.

I have a large fuschia - just the bog standard hedge one - that is covered in bees.

Lavender too.

Alkanet!

Thyme - quite often sit with a cup of tea next to my small thyme bush on a sunny morning watching the bees labour all over it before I start my own working day...

I have a small garden which gets lots of bees.
I’ve got lavender, jasmine, clematis, honeysuckle, various hebes, alliums, lilies, salvias, verbena, veronica and sedum, all very popular with ‘my’ bees.

Also flowering herbs: thyme, oregano, chives, mint, hyssop, borage, rosemary.

The bees are all over my flowering rosemary bush and the butterflies love my buddlia.

Alliums, salvia, geraniums, nepeta. Far fewer bees around this year than there were this time last year -they were absolutely swarming the alliums and geraniums at this point last year and just a few this year.

Comfrey, they go mad for it. I also have a wild area with a lot of vetch and they love that too.

Honeysuckle

Lavender
Crabapple blossom
Alliums

I let spring onions go to seed, and the bees love them. Leeks are even better.

Bees - oregano
Butterflies - buddleia