Bee Friendly Flowers in September
We're lucky enough to be around the corner from a Piet Oudolf designed garden, which is looking just lovely at the moment. I had a stroll around it yesterday afternoon and it's alive with pollinators, particularly bees. Our own garden is pretty buzzy too, and super colourful at a time when most folks' are looking pretty autumnal. Striking though is the lack of butterflies, which is entirely typical - they have had a really terrible year. I only saw 6 all afternoon.
As you'll see (below), the bees in both gardens were mostly two types of bumblebee - the common carder and garden bumblebee - and honeybees. Lots of beautiful new queen bumbles, some workers - Bombus pascuorum often has two generations a year. There was a smattering of hoverflies and butterflies too.
I guess in the Oudolf garden the planting is mostly aesthetically driven, but they have some banging bee plants. As for us here, it's as much about providing multiple nectar and pollen resources for as long as possible throughout the year. And what's good for bees is good for a whole range of other pollinating insects - butterflies and moths, hoverflies, flies, etc. etc.
The only native plants flowering at Habitat Aid HQ at the moment are common fleabane and the last of the fabulous Purple loosestrife, Lythrum salicaria, as the meadows are long cut. In the hedgerows there are the final knockings of hops and honeysuckle, and our native clematis, Clematis vitalba. After that there will be ivy, the last major native species of the season.
I'm a die hard fan of native plants (obvs. - Ed.), but even I recognise how important non-native species are at the end of summer in these days of climate change. They keep the last generation of the year fuelled, and let overwintering species fatten up ahead of hibernation. Worth mentioning the role too that fallen fruit plays in this, particularly for butterflies (some ahead of migration) and queen wasps.
The bumblebee queens you see at this time of year are building up reserves ahead of their long sleep. There's the odd solitary bee, and lots of honeybee workers stocking up for winter, rubbing along with hoverflies and butterflies.
Some of our pollinator friendly perennials and shrubs are only just starting to flower, like Viburnum tinus, while others, like the geranium 'Rozanne' and Erysimum 'Bowles's Mauve', have been blooming all summer. Some, like sedums or Verbena bonariensis will attract a wide range of insects. Other flowers with more demanding access appeal to pollinators with longer tongues.
I took some photos today to show some of my favourites. It's in no way an exhaustive list, but I hope it will give you some helpful ideas.
Agastache 'Heatwave'
Anemone x hybrida 'Pamina'*
Aster 'Violetta'
Aster 'Little Carlew'
Aster macrophyllus 'Twilight'
Calamintha nepeta ssp.Nepeta
Eupatorium Maculatum 'Atropurpureum'
Geranium 'Rozanne'
Knautia 'Macedonia'
Origanum 'Hopleys'
Persicaria amplexicaulis 'Orange Field'
Salvia 'Amistad'
Teucrium x lucidrys
Verbena bonariensis
Viburnum tinus, 'Eve Price' I think!
*Note her full pollen baskets. Several bumblebee species have two and B. terrestris now sometimes even three generations a year - most likely though this is pollen for new males and queens.