By Amanda Thomas from Watford

As the weather becomes more autumnal and my wild garden begins to look a little tired and faded, the florist in me can’t help longing for more beautiful, bright blooms of flowers.

For a moment, I’m slightly tempted by the abundance of colourful bedding plants on offer at most garden centres. But after spending the last five years or so turning my garden into a pollinator-friendly wildlife haven, I know that most bedding plants, with a few exceptions such as native primrose, don’t provide the nectar that bees and other pollinators need. I’ve also discovered that I really love the wild, rustic and natural look of a wildlife garden.

So instead of filling my trolley with bedding plants, I’ve opted for a variety of beautiful, pollinator-friendly, nectar rich plants that flower at various times throughout the year (with just a few colourful pansies dotted in between)!

Here are some simple ways I’m helping bumblebees and other pollinators through autumn and winter, which you might like to try at home too.

Planting flowers for bumblebees in early autumn

I recently added a new bee-friendly bed into my garden using some old wooden pallets and compost from my compost bin. I already have a good selection of plants that provide nectar for bees during the summer months but I wanted to add some plants into my garden that would continue to provide nectar for bees during autumn time too.

I planted it with nectar rich plants such as:

• Catmint (Nepeta species)
• Caryopteris (Caryopteris x Clandonensis) – this seems to be the favourite with the Common carder bees in my garden at the moment
• Japanese aster (Kalimeris species)
• Verbena ‘Bampton’ (Verbena officinalis var. grandiflora ‘Bampton’)
• Astrantia (Astrantia species)
• Winter heather (Erica carnea, Erica Darleyensis)
• Salvia / ornamental sage (Salvia species)
• Coneflower (Echinacea species)
• Tobacco plant (Nicotiana species) – grown from seed
• Borage (Borago officinalis) – grown from seed
• Oregano / wild marjoram (Origanum vulgare) – grown from cuttings

I’ve also scattered some wildflower seeds that I collected from plants in my garden which were visited frequently by bumblebees and solitary bees this summer. They include common knapweed, chives, common mallow, musk mallow, borage and nigella. These should hopefully grow and flower next year.

Collecting and sowing bee-friendly wildflower seeds

It’s the perfect time of year to sow wildflower seeds as many require a period of very cold weather to germinate. If you sow some wildflower seeds now hopefully by next summer, they will be blooming and buzzing with pollinators!

I always collect some seeds from the plants around my garden and some from my local area if there are plenty available and they are not considered to be rare. Plants such as common knapweed grow abundantly in a local field near me, so I always collect a few seeds from there. I scatter the seeds around my garden and wait to see where they pop up in the summer!

I still have pot marigold (Calendula officinalis) flowering in my garden at the moment and they should continue to flower and provide nectar until there is a hard frost. I find them to be a good, reliable plant. They have a long flowering season, are great for bees and other pollinators and self-seed very easily.

Another plant (often considered a weed) that I like to collect seeds from every year is great mullein (Verbascum Thapsus) – a biennial plant which grows as a rosette of soft, furry leaves in the first year before growing a tall spike of beautiful yellow flowers in the second year. The flowers are loved by bees but also, along with other hairy leaved plants such as lamb’s ear (Stachys byzantina), the fibres from these hairy plants are collected by female Wool carder bees (a type of solitary bee) to construct their nests with.

Feeding bumblebees through late winter and early spring

It’s also a great time to plant bulbs that will flower in late winter and early spring, providing vital nectar for winter-active bees and emerging queens to forage. I’ve found early flowering bulbs such as crocus, snowdrops, grape hyacinth, winter aconite and bluebells to be brilliant choices.

Other winter-flowering plants that I planted into my garden to help feed the bees include winter heather, hellebore, mahonia japonica* and lungwort.

Creating hibernation and nesting sites for bees

Other jobs that can be done in the garden in autumn and winter to help solitary bees and bumblebees include creating hibernation spots, adding nesting areas ready for next year, planting a native hedge, and leaving some over-grown ‘messy’ areas.

I’ve learnt that different bees like to overwinter in different places, so I’ve tried to create a variety of habitats around the garden. A lot of the time this involves doing nothing at all except resisting the urge to be too tidy. I try to always have some leaf piles, log piles, long grass, dead tree stumps, old plant stems, empty pots and old bird boxes. I also made a dead hedge a couple of years ago and I know this is used by mice, which is great for bees as they often hibernate or nest in old mouse holes.

I have tried to create a bee-bank in my garden next to my compost bin by piling up some soil into a shallow sloping mound and leaving it bare. I’ve added a few broken terracotta pots and piled up some logs next to it for shelter too. I’m still learning as I go but hopefully the variety of habitats I’ve created will provide some hibernation spots and possible nesting areas ready for next year.

A couple of years ago now I also added some native hedging into my garden including hawthorn, elder and blackthorn. As well as providing food and shelter for birds and small mammals, I’m hoping it will also provide bees with nectar in springtime as well as sheltered nesting and hibernation sites at the base of the hedging throughout the year.

Welcoming ‘weeds’

I’m a really big fan and cheerleader for ‘weeds’, I think they’re fantastic and so underrated. So many of them are beneficial for bees, edible and medicinal (with the correct knowledge and identification) and rather beautiful too, so I let lots of them grow around my garden and I never use any pesticides. If a particular weed is becoming too dominant, I remove some of it by hand.

Both chickweed and hairy bittercress can grow all year round so leaving some in your garden will really help to feed any pollinators still active during the winter months. White dead nettle is also another great weed providing nectar for bumblebees with a long flowering period from March to December.

And of course there’s the humble dandelion – I still can’t fathom how a flower that is so beautiful and beneficial in so many ways can be so unfairly chastised, along with so many other weeds it’s fantastic forage for bees!

And finally… getting cosy with a bumblebee book!

Lastly, if you haven’t already got it, I would highly recommend Bumblebee Conservation Trust’s book ‘Bumblebees: an Introduction’ (available to buy here).

On those cold winter days when the garden is frozen over, the bees are sleeping and you’re snuggled up indoors, this book will not only be an interesting read and an invaluable source of information, but also a lovely reminder of the warmer months ahead and how wonderfully full and buzzing with life our gardens can be if we choose to ‘Bee the Change’ and garden with bees and other pollinators in mind!

* A note on mahonia: the Bumblebee Conservation Trust recommends pruning mahonia soon after flowering as it has the potential to spread outside gardens.

More ways to help…

Help hibernating bumblebees

Bumblebee queens hibernate in a variety of places, from leaf litter to down in the soil. Discover how to give them a home (and avoid disturbing them) over winter.

Create cosy spaces

27 September 2021

By Margaret Alston, Bumblebee Conservation Trust volunteer

It’s that time of year again! The autumn equinox has passed, so it must be time to start planting bulbs again. Here’s my step-by-step guide, plus which flower varieties I’m trying this year to help feed bumblebees.

Amazing Alliums

I’ve always been rather a traditional bulb planter, but last autumn I was given three ‘new’ kinds of bulbs to add to my rather unimaginative selection of daffodils and crocus. I dutifully planted my ‘gifts’ of ‘Honey Lily’, ‘Drumstick’ and ‘Graceful Beauty’ Alliums in containers, as I was unsure where to plant them in the garden. I was rewarded with the most amazingly wonderful and long lasting bee-friendly plants in late spring earlier this year!

These beautiful plants which bloomed in May and June were a huge success! Bumblebees loved them and planting them in containers enabled me to move them around as required.

My plan for this autumn, then, was to plant these bulbs again and to join in the ‘Bee the Change’ idea of trying out more and new ways to help bumblebees and other bees by planting different things. I chose a selection of old favourites and added a few new ones including Allium moly and Allium azureum (also known as Allium caeruleum), which have gorgeous colour combinations and are supposedly bumblebee-friendly… We shall see!

How I plant my bulbs

So, now to the bulb planting, which to me is always a traditional and joyful occasion, coming at the end of summer and beginning of autumn when sadly, summer plants are passing over, but the anticipation of next year’s blooms is there within the new bulbs.

First of all, I set my bulbs out in order of height to which they will grow. I then gather up, dust down and set out all my available pots and containers which have often been lurking in various places around the garden.

Next comes the planting mixture. I mix half and half of ‘bulb planting’ and ‘multipurpose’ peat-free compost. Garden centres fortunately are now well stocked with all kinds of peat-free compost. I also add some horticultural grit and perlite for good drainage.

Now for the exciting bit – I’m ready to plant! Each pack of bulbs usually has information about depth and spacing of bulbs. I try to go with the depth, but would say that when planting in containers, bulbs can be set closer together than advised.

Starting with my ‘Honey Lily’ Alliums which do grow quite tall, I select my biggest pots. To help with drainage, in the bottom I sometimes put an upturned pot, some grit or some old crocks (broken bits of terracotta pot) and then I fill my pot to the required depth.

I space out my bulbs, add more mixture up to about an inch from the top, then put a layer of horticultural grit on top. This I think looks good, and protects the planted bulbs throughout the winter.

Treats for bumblebees

Next, I plant my Allium Azureum (a new variety for me), then my last year’s favourite ‘Drumstick Allium’ which grows very tall and slim just like a drumstick. The pots I used last year were rather shallow so I went for deeper pots this year. They take a while to bloom, going through many stages, but from the beginning of July until mid-September they attract bumblebees (especially males in late summer who linger drunkenly on the blooms through the night sometimes… so comical to watch!)

Next up is the ‘Graceful Beauty’ allium, which really lives up to her name, and then, some grape hyacinth varieties (trying some beautiful white ones too this year). Last but not least is ever reliable crocus. There are so many varieties of this cheerful little flower, always the first to appear in our garden in February and a welcome sight for the emerging queen bumblebees.

Now to find a place to put all these containers. I generally just group them round the garden, amongst borders, on paths, patios or wherever looks good – another good reason to plant in pots. As the bulbs start to come up, you can always regroup and alter their position. Planted bulbs also make a great gift!

And there you have it… my autumn bulb planting in containers!

Happy planting to everyone! Do share photos and ideas with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, and why not try some different bulbs, become more bumblebee-friendly in your planting, and Bee the Change!

By Annie Ives, Bumblebee Conservation Trust Information Officer

Bumblebees do not make honey, so unlike honeybees (which live inside their hive all winter feeding on the honey that they produce throughout the summer), bumblebee nests have a short, annual lifecycle, completely relying on flowers for all their food.

At the end of the summer (and sometimes half-way through, depending on the species!) – when their favourite flowers have gone to seed and died off – big, bright bumblebee queens emerge from their nests and begin to look for somewhere safe and cosy to hibernate.

Queen bumblebees can live up to 12 months but spend up to half of their lives in a dormant state. When the new queens emerge from the nest, the rest of the bumblebees, which only live for a few weeks, start to die off naturally.

Queen bumblebees mate before going into hibernation, so by the time they emerge in spring or summer the following year, they are already carrying everything they need to start a brand new nest and create the next generation of bumblebees.

How to provide potential hibernation spots

Queen bumblebees will hibernate in a variety of places, from well-drained, soft soil, to leaf litter, hollow trees or inside tree bark. They often choose spaces that are north-facing, so they get less winter sun and the ground doesn’t heat up and wake them up early.

The best hibernation spots will also be on a slope or raised area, making them less likely to flood. Queen bumblebees use their legs to dig bumblebee-sized holes into the soil or other substrate, and can excavate to a depth of more than 10cm!

In your outdoor space, you can create safe hibernation spots for bumblebee queens by:

• making log piles (and leaving them alone)
• leaving dedicated areas of leaf litter
• building an open compost heap or raised bed
• creating a ‘bee bank’ – this is a shallow sloping bank of bare, sandy soil. (If you are lucky you could have hibernating bumblebees on the north side over winter, and solitary bees nesting on the south side in the summer!)
• leaving ‘untidy’ or wild areas with longer grass, moss, and cover.

How to avoid disturbing hibernating bumblebees

You might come across a hibernating queen when carrying out winter or spring jobs in your garden, such as repotting plants, turning compost or planting bulbs. If you accidentally disturb a hibernating bumblebee, don’t panic! Gently cover her back over with the same material that she had dug into and leave her be.

If she is buzzing around and won’t go back into hibernation, place her somewhere sheltered (for example, under some leaf litter). Bumblebees need to be outside to complete their lifecycles, so never take them indoors.

Helping winter-active bumblebees

In the UK, ‘winter active bumblebees’ are becoming more and more common especially in the south of England – possibly as a result of our changing climate. Instead of going into hibernation, these queens set up their nests in autumn and you could find their daughters visiting your flowers all through the winter!

Growing flowers such as winter heathers and winter honeysuckle will help keep them well-fed throughout the colder months. Winter-flowering mahonias are also great for bumblebees, but do have the potential to spread outside gardens so should be pruned soon after flowering.

Discover more from our Bee the change resources.

By Benjamin Fallow, age 7

Bees, butterflies and all the pollinators are really incredible, they help to pollinate lots of plants around the world, so they’re really important! Without pollinators we can’t grow lots of things, so we have to protect them.

Here’s what I’ve planted in my pollinator garden at home.

Benjamin’s mum Michelle said:

Benji’s taught me so much about plants and which ones are good for insects! Our garden is relatively small, semi-detached size, and my partner and I aren’t really gardeners. But this year we tried to make our garden as wildlife-friendly as possible, and all the ideas for planting were Benji’s – he genuinely knows much more about it than us, mostly from watching Gardeners’ World!

Benjamin said:

I made a wildflower meadow in the corner of our garden, I collected seeds from different plants and tried to get lots of species that the insects love. I’ve put oxalis (wood-sorrel), cat’s-ear, dandelions, alliums, storks-bill geranium, cowslips, and in the spring crocuses, wild daffodils, and English bluebells.

We planted a flower bed especially for pollinators. I grew this foxglove from a seed when I was five and this is the first year it’s flowered! We’ve planted echinacea (coneflower) and helenium, which have daisy-shaped flowers which makes their nectar really accessible to bees!

Hellebore is a good source of early season nectar for bumblebees, and they love our lavender and oregano.

Bumblebees love to rob the nectar from foxgloves and salvias, and we’ve planted lots of them! My favourite is Salvia ‘Amistad’. We have lots of clematis, and wild and rambling roses, these have open centres so the bees can get in.

One of my favourite flowers is storks-bill geranium, this has three large nectar capsules around the stigma so it’s really good for pollinators and we planted lots of it in our garden.

Last year I made a wildlife pond out of a washing up bowl, and this year we dug a bigger pond. It’s really important for pollinators to have a source of water and we’ve got rocks and stones so the bees can access the water. I’ve planted lots of water irises around the pond, one iris flower can have six nectar areas above each lip petal. That is extra good for bees!

By Sarah Womersley, coordinator at Rowledge Primary School

Here at Rowledge Primary School’s communal school garden, the “Busy Bees Gardening and Wildlife Club” are trying to extend the flowering season for our bumblebee visitors.

We are letting our self seeded wildflowers grow where they think best – including our borage plant which lives in the top of the compost container, and will stay where it is for the rest of the season to provide some autumn nectar!

Did you know? Borage is a bumblebee superfood! After a bumblebee has fed on its flowers, borage can refill the nectar in just a few minutes – ready for the next guest.

We are also planting with spring and early queen bumblebees in mind. All of our winter bedding containers are being under-planted with crocuses which should pop up early in the spring, and they also contain lungwort (Pulmonaria) and forget-me-nots, which should provide some winter and spring nectar.

The classes are potting up self-seeded hellebore saplings to plant in the garden next spring and are planting 120 lavender plug plants for over-wintering and passing on to parents next spring to spread the bumblebee love to their gardens at home.

Why hellebores? These easy-to-grow plants flower early in the year (typically December – April), and so provide a rich source of pollen and nectar for winter-active bumblebees and hungry bumblebee queens emerging from hibernation in spring! There are lots of varieties you can try including stinking hellebore (Helleborus foetidus) and Christmas rose (Helleborus niger).

We will be undertaking some nature detective sessions to try to identify which bees we have visiting us next spring!

14 March 2022

By Katrina ‘Tree’ Thuis, Bumblebee Conservation Trust volunteer ambassador

I live in a top floor flat in East London and have a little roof-terrace, or as I call it, my bee-balcony!

Early in 2020 I had a problem with some of my planters filling up with rainwater, and a little voice inside my head started telling me that although weight restrictions on my building’s roof meant I couldn’t have a proper pond up here, perhaps this was Nature, nudging me to try out a bit of water-loving bee-friendly planting. What had I got to lose by listening to that little voice?

First, I had to read up a little on the differences between ‘bog’ plants and ‘marginal’ plants. I admit I used to mash them all together in my head and assumed they’d all be fine in the water. It seems that bog plants like acidic soil and to be damp but not permanently saturated, and marginal plants are fine with being in the water, but also with lower water levels, as long as their roots have access to it deeper down. I therefore decided that marginal plants would be the best choice for my purposes.

Did you know? ‘Marginal plants’ are called this because they often grow around the margins (edges) of ponds where the water is shallow!

My inadvertent attempts at cultivating an aquatic tomato plant had failed miserably… so I emptied out the planters for a new project!

I found a website which seemed to have exactly what I needed – a collection of 10 marginal plants, with the option of also including the soil and gravel needed. To be sure I was using the right stuff, I went for the full package. The plants are nearly all native to the UK and were selected with bees in mind. The plants also covered a long flowering period, which is one of the key things we need to bear in mind when planting for bees and other pollinators.

I cleared out two of the waterlogged planters (oh my, the pong was rather hefty!) and when my delivery arrived, I excitedly delved in to find a selection of baskets containing what looked like … mud. Perhaps a couple of leaves here and there. I lined them up outside and looked at them. How was this little lot going to keep my bees happy?

As I was documenting the experience for this blog, I ploughed ahead, determined to cover the highs and lows of the process, and began to place the pots into the containers I’d cleared out. If some of these were just twigs, then so be it. This was when I learnt my first lesson. I had underestimated the amount of space the plants would take up. Even channelling my finest Tetris skills, I just couldn’t fit all the pots into the two planters I had emptied out. Luckily, I was able to re-home the contents of another planter and use that as a third.

It should be noted that as I am in a top floor flat, this is not designed with general pond life in mind. If I had any chance of having frogs or newts etc visiting me, then it would be designed differently. I’d fall off my chair if I saw any amphibian here! And there’s no danger of hedgehogs or similar falling in, so I’ve not needed to install any ramps. This is purely intended to provide for pollinators, and if any of those decide to go for a paddle, there are plenty of stems for them to climb on to.

So which plants did I have…?

• Marsh marigold (Caltha palustris) – native, flowers March – June.
• Lesser spearwort (Ranunculus flammula) – native, flowers June – July.
• Water forget-me-not (Myosotis scorpioides) – native, flowers May – September.
• Blue flag iris (Iris versicolor) – non-native, flowers May – June (selected due to size for my planter).
• Purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) – native, flowers June – August.
• Marsh woundwort (Stachys palustris) – native, flowers July – September.
• Gypsywort (Lycopus europaeus) – native, flowers June – September.
• Yellow loosestrife (Lysimachia vulgaris) – native, flowers July – August.
• Water plantain (Alisma plantago-aquatica) – native, flowers June – August.
• Flowering rush (Butomus umbellatus) – native, flowers July – September.

I also picked up a couple of oxygenating plants; some elodea and pepper grass.

Every so often I took a photograph so I could log how my endeavour was progressing. Those plants I’d described as ‘just twigs’ began to show signs of life, and over the months it all really started coming into its own. The transformation was so satisfying to watch unfold in front of me.

I admit, it wasn’t all plain sailing, and I had a bit of an algae issue at one point. I’d anticipated something like that would happen and had bought some pond snails which I hoped might help. I didn’t get them immediately, as I wanted some algae to build up for them to eat; I didn’t want to pop them in a fresh pot with nothing to get stuck into. At its worst, I used a bamboo cane and swirled it around as though making candy-floss to scoop it out. The warning would be to ensure that if manually removing algae, ensure you aren’t also removing any pond life such as your precious snails. I’ve read that popping what you’ve scooped out at the edge of the pond gives things a chance to climb back in. When I added my snails, there were one or two leaves of duckweed in with them. Now I have rather a lot of it, however, I believe its presence is helping to manage the algae, so I’m letting it be for now and just keeping an eye on the coverage.

So, did I get any buzzy visitors? Did my efforts please some pollinators? Yes. I am bee-lighted with the results of this exercise! I had at least three different types of bumblebee visit my marginal planters – the Buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) was first, followed by Red-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius) and Common carder bees (Bombus pascuorum). I’d not seen Red-tailed up here last year so was very pleased to welcome them back to my balcony.

I also had other insects and pollinators swing by; the ladybirds enjoyed the greenfly, and I had various hoverfly types too, as well as some tiny bees. I tend to assume that any tiny dark bee is a lasioglossum species of solitary bee, but am never confident identifying the small ones. Perhaps one day.

The purple loosestrife features in a LOT of my pictures, that’s because it has a wonderfully long flowering period. It started in June and in September it was still making my bee visitors happy. It is now one of my new favourite bee-friendly plants. I’m certainly getting a lot of ‘bang for my buck’ from it.

So there we have it. I had a bee in my bonnet earlier in the year about setting up a pollinator-friendly marginal habitat in the skies of London and I had a stab at it. Is it something I would do again? Yes – it has been a fascinating journey for me. If I’m ever fortunate enough to move somewhere I can build a proper pond then I’d definitely do so. I did learn a bit from this exercise, and would like to share ‘Tree’s Top Tips’ with anyone interested:

• Don’t underestimate the space the plants will take up.
• Don’t worry if your plants don’t instantly impress – give them time.
• Select plants which will flower at varying points.
• Get some pond snails.
• Check the fill every so often and top up if rain isn’t forecast.
• BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME!

Of course, being someone who enjoys planning the next project, I’m already turning my thoughts to what else I can do on my balcony!

Read more of Tree’s blogs on her website here.

More ways to help

Looking to create a bumblebee-friendly space? Check our our Bee the change resources here.

By Margaret Alston, ‘newbie dahlia enthusiast!’

Dahlias to me were always something other gardeners grew and were not for me! I thought they might be difficult and problematic perhaps, and I maybe even thought that they would not attract bumblebees. However, my mind has been changed after visiting beautiful National Trust gardens late last summer, where dahlias and bumblebees were plentiful. I have since then paid more attention to this, what now appears to be, fantastic long-flowering beauty. I have decided to give dahlias a chance in our garden this year and ‘Bee the Change’.

First of all, I needed to select which dahlias I would grow, and although you can grow dahlias from seed, I decided that tubers would be best for a beginner like me!

Selection was a bit of a minefield with no end of varieties and types. Bumblebees seem to love single-flowered dahlias, but also collarettes (with their tiny frilled collars) and anemone-flowering varieties (with their central ‘pincushions’) seem popular. They also vary greatly in height from maybe 40cm to well over a metre, with many that can be grown in pots. So, all in all, a great choice out there for flower and bumblebee lovers like me.

Bee the Change top tip! Look for dahlia varieties where the pollen is visible in the centre of the flower and not hidden by lots of dense petals. These are best for bumblebees and other pollinators.

I chose and ordered a variety of tubers to try out, mostly just one of each, which included all the above named types. While waiting for them to arrive, I prepared my pots … a selection of 2 or 3 litre ones, reused from garden centres, which I thoroughly scrubbed. At the garden centre, I chose some multi-purpose peat-free compost as the best option for the environment, and used it straight from the bag with no need to make up a mixture!

Once the tubers arrived I laid them out and wrote labels for each. The tubers vary greatly in size so the different sized pots are useful as the tuber needs to fit quite snugly in its pot. I filled each pot about a third with compost, then placed a tuber in and added more compost until only the old stalk was showing. It doesn’t matter if the stalk is not sitting centrally as it tends to move to the side itself!

I then put my pots into my unheated greenhouse and watered sparingly, according to instructions. I will continue to water every few days to make sure the compost stays damp.

Hopefully the tubers will sprout leaves and the dahlias will be ready to plant out in my garden by mid to end of May. My intention is to put them all into larger pots but we shall see… Follow me on Twitter @bumblebuddeez for regular updates or stay tuned for an update on my dahlias here!

Thank you for reading my blog and hopefully some of you will join me on my dahlia growing journey!

June update

After potting up my dahlia tubers in March, I thought that they might take perhaps a couple of weeks to sprout, but in fact they took several weeks! I visited them daily, anxiously watching for tiny signs of life. They seemed very dry… should I water them? I read that if they were watered too much, the roots would rot. In the end, I sparingly watered them sometimes, but still there were no signs of life!

Then, after seven weeks, just when I was giving up hope, I was relieved to see a tiny shoot. After that they gradually sprouted one by one… what delight with each new ‘birth’!

Now after ten weeks, I had some which seemed ready to put into their final position. Many people plant them straight into the garden but I had decided because of a munching snail problem to put them into containers.

Advice is usually to pot them into fairly large, maybe 20 litre, containers, but thinking about the amount of compost that would take, I decided to gather my larger containers and pot my dahlias according to size. For example, the single flowered ones should grow to about 45cm so would go into slightly smaller pots, while some of the collarette varieties I chose could grow to nearly a metre, so they would go into larger pots.

My peat-free compost mixture consisted of ‘multi purpose’ plus ‘mature plant’ with some perlite. In the bottom of the pots I put polystyrene pieces of old packaging or crocks then I potted up four of my precious plants. I will pot up the rest gradually over the next couple of weeks.

Now, coming back to this slug and snail problem. As my garden is completely organic and I rely on nature to create its own ecosystem, sometimes a helping hand is needed. Slugs and snails love to eat dahlias and so a barrier is necessary. I have tried various things but these organic barrier pellets (which they hate to walk over) plus copper tape round the pot, hopefully will do the trick! I have also tried wool pellets and have heard that holly leaves work well.

Now all I need to do is wait for my dahlias to flower – I can’t wait to see which varieties the bumblebees like most! Happy planting everyone!

September update

What a summer it has been… dahlias have certainly dazzled! After planting into pots at the end of May, just over a month later, at the beginning of July, they started to bloom, slowly at first then blooms and bumblebees came thick and fast.

I kept all the pots together on a ‘dahlia theatre’, an old lofty table that slugs and snails did not reach, to begin with, but as the season progressed I did place them among my borders when a space appeared.

As well as the ten tubers that I had planted into large containers, I also planted some seeds which quickly and easily germinated and were soon ready to plant out. Again, I put them into pots, out of reach of munching snails and they also started to bloom. I kept them all very well watered and fed them every couple of weeks with liquid seaweed.

My anemone flowering dahlias were beautiful but because of rather frilly and fussy centres, not so appealing to bumblebees, with one exception: ‘Totally Tangerine’, a beautiful long-flowering and bumblebee-attracting plant. For some reason, bumblebees just love it!

My collarette dahlias, ‘Kelsey Annie Joy’ and ‘Fashion Monger’ both performed extremely well, continue to flourish now, and have attracted many bumblebees. They are so beautiful with their little frilly skirts. I shall be treating myself to other varieties from this group next season.

The two single-flowered dahlias I grew from tubers, ‘Wishes and Dreams’ and ‘Happy Single Kiss’, again have been exemplary in their behaviour. They have bloomed and bloomed providing much food and resting places for bumblebees.

One thing that has been such a joy is a little packet of dahlia seeds, harvested then sent to me from a ‘Twitter friend’, Dotty’s garden. They were easy to grow and it was fun to wonder what colours/shapes would appear. I have constantly been deadheading all my dahlias but have now left some seed heads so that I may follow Dotty’s example by collecting and storing seeds for next year. I called my mixture ‘Dotty’s Dahlias’.

Many of my dahlias are still flowering and giving joy to anyone who visits my garden and the last few hungry bumblebees, striving to find the last drops of nectar. My ‘Dazzling Dahlias’ as I like to call them have been a success and I am hooked. I will attempt to store some of my tubers over winter, gather seeds, and I know in spring when gardening catalogues appear, I shall be choosing more… I already have a list of favourites!

Check out more planting guides and resources with our Bee the change campaign here.

By Rowena Grew from South Lincolnshire

We can all do our bit for bees, no matter how small your pot or plot! We took on a large garden 13 years ago and it evolved with our family. Over the years it has had swings, slides, trampolines, ride-on cars and paddling pools, but it has ALWAYS had plenty of insect love. We enjoy nothing more than sharing our garden with “minibeasts” and pollinators a-plenty. It really is no trouble to create a haven for them in a space that can also be used for fun, relaxing and entertaining.

We have a large lawn that we could never keep weed free. It was a battle we never won and soon realised when we stopped fighting that nature won! In the summer our lawn is a blanket of beautiful clover flowers. They look and smell delicious, not only to us but to bees, lots and lots of bees! We can lie beside them and enjoy their merry buzzing while we immerse ourselves in a book with the sunshine on our faces.

Within our flower beds we have a pond and clumps of wildflowers, a much nicer term than ‘weeds’! Ragwort, red campion, teasels and coltsfoot all open up their flowers to insects and attract more beasties to our garden than the fancy horticulturally-created blooms. Of course we have those too, but there really is room for all! The giant mullein tower over the herbaceous beds and we watch the bright caterpillars fatten and one day disappear into the ground to emerge as moths.

Growing food for the family – bumblebees love tomato and courgette flowers

Our hedges are abuzz with ivy, clematis and forsythia. Kind on the eye and even kinder to our resident insects. We love having a colony of Tree bumblebees nest in our roof every year – they head straight for the hedges as they emerge from our fascia board on humming helicopter wings. Invertebrate gardening makes for an easy life too…don’t worry about clearing beds for the winter or removing the dead heads, the hibernators love those welcoming retreats.

I’m a great advocate of budget gardening; make cuttings, collect seeds, buy from fêtes, roadside stalls and garden gate sellers, especially if they’re in your neighbourhood, you know the plants will thrive in your soil type and climate as someone else did the trial for you!

Grow from seed – nothing can beat the privilege of watching a set of leaves emerge from a tiny seed, knowing you nurtured it and are now a proud plant parent! You’ll be amazed how easy it is and I can confirm before you’ve even started that you’ll be hooked when you get your first flowers or veg.

Fill your beds with self-seeding flowers and you’ll have guaranteed colour, insects and happiness all summer long. What could be more glorious than a display of glowing sunflower faces covered in furry bottomed bees? Happy invertebrate gardening! May your blooms be full of wildlife and your heart full of pleasure.

By Thomas Glave in Birmingham

I’m originally from the Bronx, New York, and also Jamaica. I’ve lived in the Jewellery Quarter neighbourhood of Birmingham, just at the city centre’s edge, for about six years. My New York City background exposed me to a variety of urban and roof gardens, in a city where green spaces are infrequent and greatly necessary, as is also true in Birmingham.

I’ve been an ecologically minded person ever since I was a child, perhaps partly due to having grown up in proximity to Jamaica’s gorgeous rain forests.  When I was a child, the phrase “climate change” wasn’t heard much, but if you live on an island – or in a huge city – you quickly learn (or should learn) that you’ve got to be respectful and aware of the greater natural world. Climate change news has often invoked alarming stories about bees’ vulnerability; this news began to make me think that perhaps I could do my small bit for bees, rather than just worry about their possible extinction. (Besides, like everyone in my family, I’ve always loved colourful flowers, so planting them for bees would be a ‘win-win’!)

In England, I began to do research on the plants most likely to attract bees and butterflies, and soon learnt that planting diverse flowers would attract and be of great benefit to bees, and would also help achieve a kind of mini-biodiversity. I searched many sources online, and finally ordered packets of the following plants (and probably some others that I can’t remember!)

• Cornflowers (Centaurea cynanus)
• Painted daisies (Tanacetum coccineum)
• Butterfly flower / elegant clarkia (Clarkia unguiculata)
• Dwarf morning glories (Convolvulus tricolor)
• Chinese forget-me-nots (Cynoglossum amabile)
• California poppies (Eschscholzia californica)
• Baby’s breath (Gypsophila elegans)
• Candytuft in white and blue (Iberis variety)
• Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena)
• Poppies (Papaver variety)
• Lacy phacelia (Phacelia tanacetifolia)
• Borage (Borago officinalis)
• Pot marigold (Calendula officinalis)

In early March I planted all the seeds in twenty planter boxes fixed to my balcony’s railings, then waited for everything to begin sprouting, as they soon enough did, against a backdrop of grey and brick city buildings.

Bees of different varieties have definitely been visiting, it seems most often in the morning, but also during the afternoons. One of the most remarkable things about this planting experience has been actually spotting the bees and butterflies on this fourth-floor balcony, in a largely treeless Birmingham neighbourhood. You can’t help but think: how on earth did they find the flowers? Their presence seems as impossible, nearly, as that of the birds that have alighted on the balcony in search of twigs for their nests, picked from my small trees’ mulch.

I’m fortunate to have a flat that has enormous windows from which, each day, I can see all the flowers in all their glorious flirtatious colour, beckoning the bees and butterflies to come closer. When I walk around the balcony to water and inspect the trees and other plants, I take in (actually revel in) the flowers’ beauty and the insects’ presence amongst them, and think: of course this all must powerfully affect my sense of wellbeing, as it would anyone’s. We know that greenery, colour, and sensory experiences in the natural world can positively affect us and even impact upon our worldview, perhaps more so than ever in our environmentally vulnerable era.

Who knew that flowers and insects could bring such real joy?

More ways to help

Looking to create a bumblebee-friendly space in your local area? Check our our Bee the change resources here.