Bee Wildflower Only Seed Mix

Please visit our sister site British Wildflower Meadow Seeds if you want less seed than advertised here or if your intended purchases come to under our £100 basket minimum.

Bee Wildflower Only Seed Mix

About This Seed Mix

Honeybees tend to grab the headlines in the bee world, but there are lots of bumblebees and solitary bees which need our help - arguably more so. There are a lot of them - 240 odd types of solitary bee and 24 bumblebees - and they all have different life cycles and adaptations. They have different lengths of tongue, for example, and emerge at different times of year.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, however, with the exception of the honeybee they all seem to prefer our native wildflowers when they can forage from them. Just the kind of flowers which are increasingly rare. The challenge is to try to give them - and you - lots of different types of wildflowers with a nice long flowering window, with lots of good looking wildflowers too. We hope this selection will do the trick, and work for as wide a range of bees as possible. You won't see all of these flowers flourish in your situation, but we've included so many that we are confident lots will. Forget-me-not will flower in early spring, and the flowering sequence end in August with knapweed. These wildflowers won't just be popular with you and the bees; they will also attract other pollinators like hoverflies and butterflies.

This mix can be added to grassed areas in some instances - see our blog for guidance.

Like all our wildflower seed, all the species in this mix have British provenance. This mix is freshly harvested from what were originally wild populations in the UK. No agricultural cultivars or any nonsense.

Management

You won't need to do very much with your bee friendly area. If it has grass in it, manage as you would a meadow. Otherwise it's up to you; deadhead and tidy in late summer if you like, to keep it tidy over the winter. Hoick out any pernicious weeds like dock before they set seed.

Smaller Areas

If you need less than 500g of this mix, head over to our sister site, British Wildflower Meadow Seeds for smaller packets down to 20g.

Wildflower Species:

Centaurea cyanus Cornflower

Glebionis segetum Corn Marigold

Papaver rhoeas Corn Poppy

Myosotis Arvensis Field forget-me-not

Lotus corniculatus Bird's-foot trefoil

Dipsacus fullonum Teasel

Echium vulgare Viper's Bugloss - shown in photo

Centaurea nigra Common Knapweed

Galium verum Lady's Bedstraw

Galium mollugo Hedge Bedstraw

Knautia arvensis Field Scabious

Malva moschata - Musk mallow

Origanum vulgare Wild Marjoram

Prunella vulgaris Selfheal

Silene dioica Red Campion

Silene flos-cuculi Ragged Robin

Silene latifolia White Campion

Stachys sylvatica Hedge Woundwort

Vicia cracca Tufted Vetch

Suppliers: All Things Rural and Wildflower Turf

Sowing rate: 1g to 2g per square metre.