Save the Bees!

Going back to a topic from a little while ago on (not) tidying up the garden, the encouragement of bees is a good reason not to have your garden too neat. Even if you don’t like honey, remember that it’s the pollinating work of bees which provides us humans with at least one third of the food we eat. The Global Bee Project campaigns for the survival of bees of all sorts which are so important for plant pollination worldwide. They ask us to leave some wilder places in our gardens to provide refuge for bees and other insects. We may think mainly about honeybees, but bumblebees are in danger too, through loss of habitat. The Bumblebee Conservation Trust urge us to grow traditional cottage garden plants, and give a table showing which plants we should be growing in each month to help the bumblebees. The RHS also gives details of plants which will attract bees My own garden seemed to be full of bees this year, so I hope maybe I’m doing my bit. As well as the structural plants I included in my new design, I also sowed packets of colour-themed annual seeds, which produced many flowers attractive to bees and butterflies.