Home & Garden
SIMPLY LIVING FRANCE
PAGE 34
Plant a Bee Friendly Garden
Plant a Bee Friendly Garden
What flowers are bee friendly and why should we bother? Put simply, bees pollinate our plants, which means they carry pollen between plants of different sexes to fertilise them, or even between different parts of the same plant, which help plants reproduce. Bees even help plants survive by preventing inbreeding, helping to produce one third of our food supply, giving us countless fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Plants provide half of the world’s oils, fibres (such as the cotton used to make clothes), and other raw materials. If bees disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live. That line is usually attributed to Einstein, and it seems plausible enough. After all, Einstein knew a lot about science and nature, and bees help us produce food. When thinking about bees in your home garden, think wild! Appreciate the beauty of weeds. Dandelions, clovers, loosestrife, milkweed, goldenrod and other flowering weeds are very important food sources for bees. In areas filled with green sprawling lawns, dandelions and clovers are vital plants for a bee’s survival. Don’t forget the fruit and veg! Watermelons, cantaloupes, cucumbers,
pumpkins, aubergine, hot peppers and gourds all must have bees to pollinate them. Tomatoes, while self-pollinating, will have better fruit and seed set (Important to gardeners who collect their own heirloom tomato seeds) when their flowers are vibrated by visiting bees. Also, whilst thinking about bees, don’t forget the birds! Try perennials like red or purple hollyhocks, pink or red coral-bells, bee balm, summer phlox or sage. Annuals that attract hummingbirds include begonias, cosmos, geraniums and petunias. Don’t forget shrubs and vines like hibiscus, honeysuckle and flowering currant. If you are thinking about keeping bees and making the best tasting honey, plant sunflowers! Other plants that are attractive to bees and produce high quality honey are the flowers of blackberries, fruit and citrus trees, herbs (like rosemary, borage and sage), flowering bushes, clover and other wild flowers or, in the case of Monte-Bellaria, lavender. You can buy ready-made bee flower bombs from the garden centre, just chose a patch of lawn you won’t use, throw the bomb and over the coming months you will find your lawn is a ‘hive’ of activity (get it?)!
