Insect and Bee Friendly Gardens

physichull · 22 Jul 2019 at 21:38

I was at Bluedot festival this weekend and one of the standout talks I saw (yes its a festival where we get science talks!) was about how to make an insect friendly garden and I actually found it really eye opening.

It was by a chap called Dave Goulson, who is a Professor at the University of Sussex and I found the same presentation when he gave it at an event in Berlin earlier this year:

There were a number of things that really stood out in my mind (I know there may be bigger wider issues, but I don't particularly want to debate the ethics of it all):

1. The decline of insects is more and more stark with a number of studies showing rapid declines in insect populations.

2. Weeds are just undesirable flowers because we say they are. Don't cut your lawn so regularly and consider growing wild flower meadows.

3. Bee hotels are an excellent way of attracting solitary bees.

4. Our gardens can often be quite inhospitable and uninviting to bees, particularly many bedding plants that are popular and sold widely, but many of the flowers cannot be frequented by bees.

5. Roadside verges don't necessarily need their grass cutting all the time. Many roundabouts or verges could be used to plant more wildflowers. As well as looking beautiful, they are a great environment to insects.

Has anyone else made a conscious effort to make their gardens more bee and insect friendly?

I've just bought two bee hotels on the back of his talk and am going to look at other plants I could plant that would be good for bees. I'd love a Buddleja but I know they grow massive!

More info: https://www.thebuzzclub.uk/

Bickaxe · 22 Jul 2019 at 22:54

Our garden plan involves quite a few bee friendly plants. Even looking at the potential for a small hive.

samcat · 22 Jul 2019 at 23:04

Have done for year.. Got a couple of wild sections that I mow about twice a year, a couple of areas where small sticks/bigger sticks are just sorta stacked up and left (great for insects). Deliberate planting of early and late flowering plants (to give them something to feed on early/late in the season), 1 bed thats for wild flowers.. Dont use pesticides as they are VERY bad for insects/bees.. Neem oil with natural peppermint soap is as extreme as I get to deal aphids on certain precious plants!

Every little helps, and its REALLY nice seeing loads of bees in the garden!

Russinating · 22 Jul 2019 at 23:16

Yeah, despite having a TINY garden. Our outbuilding roof has a seedum roof with wild flower seeds and they seem to love our lavender. We've also got some wild roses at the wall at the back and I chuck all the bark from wood fuel into a pile for insects etc. Not much but yeah, every little helps and I see lots of bees in our garden.

We're about to move and this (bees and other wildlife) will be forefront of the plans.

PardonTheWait · 22 Jul 2019 at 23:48

My other half plants quite a lot of flowers that bees seem to like, and now we should be moving soon into a place with a nice big garden, she plans on letting a section of it grow wild after planting with wild flowers.

We love a bee, she gets very excited when she sees them which is a) adorable and b) good for the planet.

We do have a little bee hotel in the garden but I haven't noticed them take an interest yet.. but I don't really keep an eye on it. It'll be coming with us anyway

Hotwired · 22 Jul 2019 at 23:55

physichull said:
5. Roadside verges don't necessarily need their grass cutting all the time. Many roundabouts or verges could be used to plant more wildflowers. As well as looking beautiful, they are a great environment to insects.

This already happens and on purpose.

Native trees inc fruit trees and wild flowers are planted/seeded by the highways agency in road and motorway verges, essentially they create very long thin nature habitats.

They generally only go through with a weed whacker and chainsaw when things get big enough to be a safety issue. Then it gets replanted/seeded and left alone again for years.

DampCat · 23 Jul 2019 at 01:52

We've got brambles overhanging our fence and at first I was fighting them off, but they flowered at the beginning of the year and at any one time we had 20+ bees in there. We've left it alone now, and there's so much fruit hanging into the garden that we'll harvest. It's a bit unsightly but we couldn't bring ourselves to destroy it, I had no idea it was so prolifically popular for bees.

I'll cut it back a bit in winter as it grows very fast.

Amp34 · 23 Jul 2019 at 04:41

We have a reasonably large garden (1000 sq m) that had a grand total of a couple of dozen self seeded poppies in the way of plants (excluding grass) when we moved in three years ago.

I’ve planted in the region of a couple of hundred perennials as well as a couple of dozen shrubs and dozen trees, with one of the main aims bring wildlife. A lot are propagated versions of native flowers and the bees love them. We also have a large wood pile which can be used for insects if required, and I’ve left a section of the lawn to be mown once a year, under some aspen trees. I’m adding some native plants in there next year - seeding hasn’t worked unfortunately.

My next door neighbour also has a hive so we get home made honey. Now it’s largely a waiting game, everything is still pretty small at the moment, but things are growing well and in a few years we should have a more mature garden.

Amp34 · 23 Jul 2019 at 06:19

200sols · 23 Jul 2019 at 07:05

We tried to create a wildlife friendly garden. Along with lots of different flowers to attract different insects we have a pond and stream. We have lots of bees and butterflies this year along with two bumblebee nests in the ground.

Temujin · 23 Jul 2019 at 08:16

There was a similar message on one of the BBC gardening programs I was watching the other week.

A lot of talk about not mowing so often, having meadow like sections with lots of wild flowers, etc. I think it's definitely something I will get behind once we move house

Martynt74 · 23 Jul 2019 at 08:48

Not a conscious effort, but when we moved in my wife wanted the garden to look more "wild". Think we managed it here!

sovietspybob · 23 Jul 2019 at 09:11

Yeah we've made a conscious effort to make the garden more wildlife friendly.

I planted about 30m of native/flowing hedgerow (on top of the about 25m of existing hedge) to section off our orchard which is a mix of blackthorn, hawthorn, wild rose, field maple, cherry and probably some others i can't remember!

I keep the grass cut high enough that the clover in it isn't cut as the bees seem to love that.

Also leave sections mostly around the edges (maybe 2m deep) uncut for the rest of the wildlife, i do keep the brambles in check as they'll take over otherwise but leave enough to get a useful amount of fruit from them.

physichull · 23 Jul 2019 at 15:18

One thing that really opened my eyes was that just because flowers are flowers doesn't make them bee friendly. Many bedding plants and roses are very difficult for bees to get properly into and amongst the anthers, so thats something I am going to be watching out for in the future.

Great replies btw, really good to hear.

Mahonyy · 23 Jul 2019 at 16:23

Lavender is a win-win, bees love it and smells great.

physichull · 23 Jul 2019 at 16:46

Mahonyy said:
Lavender is a win-win, bees love it and smells great.

Yup! Got two of those, on in the front garden and one in the back! Buddleja is amazing too.

SpeedFreak · 23 Jul 2019 at 16:50

Lavender and sage have proven very popular. We also have a bumblebee nest which appeared in the corner and is great.

dodg3rman · 24 Jul 2019 at 09:02

Our garden sounds like there's a motorbike meet nearby most of the summer due to all the bees. We often joke that the superbikes are in town as we wander around having a nose at whats going on. We dont have any grass as I cant stand it so I planted a few things here and there and pretty much let the garden self seed itself to see what happened. I have a central area that I planted with hebes and it flowered the best ive seen it this year. The bees absolutely loved it along with a robin who likes to sit in the branches and wait for me to feed him (he eats from my hand as hes very friendly and has nested in our garden for a few years now). Ive also got nesting blackbirds and one of the fledglings now hangs around with the robin and waits for me to feed it too , it will only come within a foot of my hand at the moment but thats nice.

Occasionally i'll have a tidy up but I love things to grow whereever they decide to and as for weeds , well one mans weed is another mans garden paradise

alexakasloth · 24 Jul 2019 at 09:13

We seeded the flower bed with a mix of wild flowers that attract bees and have some planters with lavender and thyme which attract lots of bees.

nst68 · 24 Jul 2019 at 11:36

We try to plan a majority of bee/butterfly friendly plants.

Bees love salvias, the best we've found is one called "Hot Lips" it's starts flowering late April to early May and will continue till October, then just prune it back to almost to the ground.
We had a hummingbird moth on it a couple of times last year :cool:

Hoverflies love hebes and got a couple of dwarf buddlejas for butterflies.