4 August 2022

By Amanda Thomas from Watford

Of all the various wildlife-friendly habitats I’ve added into my wild garden, I’ve found that my herb bed along with the fruit and vegetable beds seem to attract the most bees and other pollinators. I have lots of wild areas in my garden – long grass, wildflowers, log piles, bug hotels, ponds, brambles and a dead hedge, but at this time of year it’s the herb bed that’s absolutely buzzing with life from bumblebees, honeybees and solitary bees to butterflies, hoverflies and moths! I love that growing food benefits nature as well as myself and my family.

One of my favourite herbs to grow is thyme, I have a few different varieties and I love to use it in cooking and to make tea – thyme and elderberry* tea is lovely. When in flower, thyme attracts lots of bees, particularly honeybees and also the very tiny but very beautiful mint moth. At the moment the oregano is in full bloom and during the day it’s covered in bees and gatekeeper butterflies. The lavender is always full of bumblebees as well as both small and large white butterflies and it makes a lovely tea too – I like it mixed with lemon balm and lemon thyme.

I also have rosemary, mint, and yarrow growing in the herb bed which all attract pollinators when they flower and make lovely herbal teas too! This year I also added some salad rocket to the herb bed and it’s grown huge! I’ve not had to buy any rocket for months now and it’s flowered profusely, attracting lots of smaller solitary bees. Earlier in the year the chive and nigella flowers were also buzzing with life.

Just across from my herb bed I have some vegetable beds, fruit shrubs and a small greenhouse where I grow salad crops. As part of my wildlife-friendly gardening ethos I don’t use any pesticides at all as I know how detrimental they are for wildlife, everything is grown in a wildlife-friendly way – slugs and snails are re-homed and aphids are left for the birds and ladybirds to enjoy. Thanks to all the wonderful pollinators, this year we have eaten lots of raspberries, blueberries, strawberries and now the blackberries are beginning to ripen.

I leave some of the vegetables I grow to go to flower such as onions, broccoli, lettuce and mustard as the flowers are fantastic for pollinators. I’ve found that bumblebees really love onion flowers and once the flowers have been pollinated the seeds can then be collected to grow more vegetables next year.

Next to our veg beds we have a pergola which this year has been covered in passionflowers and now passionfruit, it’s a real favourite with bees but last year I grew nasturtiums and cucamelons on the pergola which both have beautiful, bright flowers that attract pollinators and not only do they look gorgeous but both provide food too. Nasturtium flowers, leaves and seed heads are all edible and nutritious – a great addition to salads and cucuamelons make a great, little snack in the garden!

Another great addition to a wildlife garden is native hedging which can also produce food. We have some newly planted, small, native hedges consisting of various shrubs including hawthorn, elder, hazel and blackthorn all of which produce nectar rich blossom in spring for bees and other pollinators and food in the autumn. As the hedges grow bigger there should be enough food for both us and the wildlife. Hawberries, elderberries, hazelnuts and sloe berries can all be used to make various drinks, foods, teas and tinctures.*

For anyone thinking of making their garden more wildlife-friendly to attract more bees and other pollinators I would highly recommend growing herbs, fruits, vegetables and salad crops. Not only will your garden be buzzing with life and provide bees and other insects with the vital food and shelter they need but it will also provide you with healthy, nutritious, organic food, and what’s more the beautiful sounds, scents and sights of the plants and all the wonderful wildlife they attract will almost certainly bring you joy and improve your wellbeing. I love that wildlife-friendly gardening has taught me so much about nature and myself – I wanted to make my garden wild to benefit nature but in doing so I’ve benefited myself in so many ways!

If Amanda’s blog has inspired you to help bumblebees by growing your own food, check out our FREE guides in our Bee the change area!

* A note on berries: collect responsibly and safely, and make sure you are able to correctly identify what you are picking. Please check correct preparation and cooking instructions for any part of a wild plant collected from outdoors.

By Karen Baker from Horsham

We bought our old house with a large garden over twenty years ago and spent the first few years renovating our home and working long hours to pay for it! Here’s how we’ve encouraged a range of wildlife, including pollinators, into our patch over time.

Friendship garden

At first, I only had time to keep the front garden tidy. There is a large flower bed which I started to fill with my favourite blue and purple flowers and called it the ‘Purple Bed’. Friends and family knew this and bought me plants to add. They also offered plants from their own gardens and these have been the most successful.

One friend in particular shared my love of nature and wanted me to take lots of wildlife-friendly plants from her garden as she was seriously ill and needed to know they were cared for. I realised how special gardens are for keeping memories of friends and family, and renamed this part of the garden our ‘Friendship Garden’.

It has developed into a random cottage garden which bees and butterflies love. Their favourites are pulmonaria (from my Granny’s garden), allium, hardy geraniums, aquilegia, purple (and pink) toadflax, red valerian, verbena bonariensis, scabious, and Japanese anemones.

Driveway

Our driveway has its own character. The old fence is covered in lichens and rambling plants including honeysuckle and wild roses. There are also my family heirloom rambling roses: cuttings my parents gave me that originally grew in my grandparents’ garden. More special memories.

There are also quirky garden additions here created by my artistic husband. Planters made from old air compressors, racing tyres filled with plants, a firepit created from gas bottles and made to look like my old Chevy truck, and a gate from engine camshafts. He has made tables and benches for friends as well as us. Like our parents, we have always reused everything – long before “upcycling” became trendy!

Wild Garden

The rest of the garden was left untended for many years and we realised the benefits of this as wildlife came into it from the woodland behind. Gradually we have added features to make this area even more attractive to all creatures.

We started by building a raised deck so we can sit and enjoy time with our visitors both human and animal! The garden slopes down from here. The first part is full of cottage plants that friends gave us – usually as they were too ‘invasive’ for their more formal gardens. Not a problem here as the more the merrier and they mingle with wildflowers that self-seed.

A couple of years ago, we finally created a wildlife pond within view of the deck. This year dragonflies emerged from the pond for the first time. We hope to attract frogs, toads and even newts. We seeded the bank with more cottage and wildflower seeds. This was a riot of colour last year and a stunning mass of wild daisies this year. I will gradually add native perennial plants grown from seed so it will be a colourful display and continue to attract diverse pollinators.

Next there is a row of mature apple trees providing food at every stage from blossom to harvest. I pick a few apples but leave windfalls for wildlife. Roe deer are regular visitors here – last year a young buck came every day. He would doze there for a while and then stagger away – we think he got drunk eating old apples turning themselves into cider!

Really wild garden

Beyond the orchard the garden gets progressively wilder. I encourage the taller plants there including teasels, ragwort, willowherb, evening primrose, grasses, buddleia and a large patch of stinging nettles. Mature ivy rampages over fallen dead trees – buzzing with life in late summer as it flowers. There are piles of old logs, stones, tiles and compost heaps providing homes for many small creatures.

An overgrown hazel hedge turns the last narrow part of our garden into a woodland edge. Primroses, snowdrops and a few English bluebells grow there and in summer it becomes a jungle of tall bracken. A narrow path through here leads to beautiful bluebell woods (sadly not our own).

Feeling inspired by Karen’s amazing wildlife garden? Check out our Bee the change campaign to discover simple actions you can take in your outdoor space to support a range of wildlife including pollinators, birds, and hedgehogs! There are FREE resources to download and a limited number of postal packs also available.

By Bex Cartwright, Bumblebee Conservation Trust’s Senior Conservation Officer

Have you ever heard of a cucamelon?

Last year I tried growing this unusual little fruit. The flowers turned out to be surprisingly popular with bumblebees. So, I thought I would introduce you to them and share some tips on how to grow your own!

What is a cucamelon?

Cucamelons are also known as Mexican Sour Gherkins or Little Mouse Watermelons (‘Sandiitas de Raton’) and they do look like a mini watermelon. They are in the same family as cucumbers, squashes, pumpkins and courgettes, and are native to South America.

They taste similar to cucumbers with a slight citrus tang to them and a pleasant crunch when you bite into them, like the crunch of an apple.

The flowers are small and yellow and I saw a number of different bumblebees and solitary bees visiting them which was a lovely surprise and bonus!

How to grow cucamelons

• Grow from seed in the spring. As plants from a warm climate, cucamelons need steady warmth to germinate so keep them on a sunny windowsill or in a greenhouse, if you have one.

• After 10-14 days your seeds should start to germinate, but they may germinate at different rates so don’t worry if some take a little longer. Once the plants are big enough to handle, transfer your young cucamelons to individual 9cm pots.

• Once all chance of frost has passed, you can transfer your cucamelons to their outdoor growing position. This should be somewhere warm and sunny with plenty of sunshine.
• Cucamelons are climbing, vine-like plants. I grew mine in buckets of peat-free compost, one plant to each, and gave them a wigwam of garden canes with twine for support to clamber up.

• Water regularly, keep the soil moist but not saturated. You can also use a normal organic tomato feed to boost growth.

• In mid to late summer your plants should start to produce flowers and fruit. They flower and crop for a long period so keep picking them. Enjoy watching to see which bees visit your plants.

• Harvest the fruit when they are about the size of a large olive. I enjoy eating them straight from the vine but you can also use them in salads,  tapas-style dishes or in a cocktail!

• You can treat your plants as perennials (plants which grow again year after year). At the end of the season you can save the large root that will have developed, store in compost and plant this out again the following year for an even earlier crop.

I hope this blog has inspired you to give cucamelons a go, they are a tasty addition to any garden and the bumblebees will thank you!

More ways to help

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

By Margaret Alston, Bumblebee Conservation Trust volunteer

Roses to me were always something that ‘other people’ grew and loved, but not me – that is, until we moved to our present home and decided to include in a hedge for wildlife a couple of Dog Roses (Rosa canina) and the semi-wild Rosa rugosa. Very soon the bumblebees and other pollinators came regularly. The Dog Rose only flowered for a short time sadly before producing traditional ‘rose hips’, but the Rosa rugosa flowered on and off all summer, often while the hips were also there.

To me, though, these were not traditional ‘roses’, which I had always thought of in a more formal setting, unlike my rather ‘wild’ garden. I had never really considered buying roses from a grower until one day when browsing on Twitter, I came across #RoseWednedsay, where rose enthusiasts shared their beautiful pictures. Yes they were beautiful and I was impressed, then hooked… but would it be possible to find bee-friendly traditional roses with as much appeal to bumblebees as my wild hedge ones? Could I ‘Bee the Change’ by planting for pollinators and grow some beautiful roses at the same time?

Trying out ‘bee-friendly’ traditional roses

A couple of years ago, I took the plunge and ordered and planted some bare-root roses. I chose, after a lot of deliberation, roses recommended as ‘bee-friendly’, following instructions carefully, putting two in the ground and three in very large pots. They all grew successfully, giving the most beautiful display.

Were they ‘bee friendly’, though? It’s a much used term nowadays I think. My most successful rose for attracting bumblebees and other pollinators was my ‘Tottering by Gently’ with lovely single yellow flowers. Also reasonably successful in the attracting bees department was my very beautiful ‘Scarborough Fair’, a semi-double open style rose.

Bee the Change top tip! Many ornamental roses offer bumblebees little or no food, because they have been bred to have lots of petals densely packed together. These cover the centre of the flowers, preventing bumblebees from accessing the pollen and nectar. When choosing roses for bumblebees, look for ones with ‘open’ flowers where the pollen and nectar is visible!  

Expanding my bee-friendly rose collection in 2023

This year, in early spring I was pleased to receive a rose gift voucher. After doing more research online, asking Twitter Gardening friends and reading what ‘experts’ had to say, I chose four more bare-root roses. These are cheaper than pot grown ones but should be planted November to April (still time then!) My new roses all have very open flowers with stamens showing, making them very accessible to bumblebees and other pollinators. I chose:

• ‘Jeepers Creepers’, a low growing ground cover rose
• ‘A Rose for Heather’, a climbing rose
• ‘Your Lovely Eyes’, a smaller shrub rose which I have put in a large pot (I recommend 45cm by 45cm)
• ‘Ballerina’, a larger shrub rose

All of these roses are ‘repeating flowering’ which means they should flower approximately from June to October and produce nectar for bumblebees and other pollinators. This means, to keep them flowering, deadheading is necessary unless or until they are hip producing. My ‘Tottering by Gently’ does produce hips at the end of the season but I deadhead up until maybe September or early October.

How I planted my bare-root roses

When my roses arrived, I soaked the roots for a couple of days to keep them hydrated before planting. Meanwhile I prepared the different planting places (this time three in the ground and one in a pot). It is worth taking time to consider where to plant.

Until it is established, a rose needs a bit of space to get started so that you can easily monitor its progress. (I once planted one too close to other plants and it didn’t get enough light so was crowded out and didn’t do well at all.)

I dug over the soil thoroughly and then a hole big enough for the roots, about 40cm by 40cm. I added plenty of a peat-free mixture of soil conditioner and composts, and sprinkled mycorrhizal fungi into the planting hole. (This beneficial fungi grows in association with roots, helping them by effectively increasing their absorptive area.)

I then placed in my rose, covering the root with my compost mixture then soil, keeping the bottom of the stems below the top of the hole. Finally, I firmed the soil carefully round the newly planted rose.

Hopefully many bumblebees will visit my newly planted roses… I shall be sharing photos and updates on our Twitter and Instagram accounts: @bumblebuddeez #RoseWednesday

Please join us … growing roses to #BeeTheChange!

Autumn update

Now here we are nearly at the end of September and our roses have indeed been ‘radiant’ and we love them but… did our bumblebees love them too?

By adding to our collection of early blooming bee-friendly roses, with some repeat flowering ones, I was hoping to extend our bee ‘banquet’ of roses throughout the summer. It did not quite work out like that though!

The first roses to bloom in early June were in our wild hedge. These were the Dog Rose (Rosa Canina) and also the Beach Rose (Rosa Rugosa). Bumblebees were immediately attracted to them, alerting us to their presence with their high pitched and frenzied buzzing. Such a wonderful ‘sound of summer’ that I have since learned is when bumblebees use ‘buzz pollination’.

I had read and heard about this wonderful phenomenon but hadn’t actually connected this to the joyful sound the bumblebees made in my ‘rose hedge’. It became clear when I read an article by Nikki Gammans, the Bee Connected Project Manager at Bumblebee Conservation Trust, entitled ‘Buzz Pollination’, where she explains in simple (well relatively simple for a non scientific person such as myself) terms how this process works! Instead of having a bumblebee frenzied jollification as I had thought, our clever friends the bumblebees were using their ingenuity to release more pollen.

As the Dog Rose season is relatively short and is usually over in July, as is the beach rose, although they do tend to flower on and off into the autumn, my plan had been to plant more repeat flowering roses to extend the growing season. I had looked for and planted roses which had an open arrangement of petals with the centre visible and pollen available. As all gardeners know, it is difficult to choose plants from catalogs and even recommendations as what suits one garden may not suit another.

I found with my ‘new roses’, ‘Jeepers Creepers’ and ‘Your Lovely Eyes’ started flowering in June and ‘Ballerina’, which I had planted later, not until early July.

Unfortunately ‘A Rose for Heather’ did not flower at all – wrong place I think so am going to move it later on. My three ‘bloomers’ though have been really beautiful.

But… did the bumblebees like them?

I would say ‘Your Lovely Eyes’, although indeed lovely and the most floriferous of the roses with a lull in blooms during August and then a glorious come back, was the least attractive to bumblebees, which occasionally and sometimes briefly visited. The blooms although beautiful, and centres visible, tended to make a cup shape which I think deterred the bumblebees.

The ‘Ballerina’ blooms were small and came in clusters, with each bloom lasting a very short time which was when bumblebees were attracted. This beautiful rose finished flowering in August and did not return but I have great hopes for next season so this is definitely one to watch.

The most successful rose, as far as the bumblebees were concerned, is our ground cover rose ‘Jeepers Creepers’ whose blooms are like an ornamental version of the dog rose. Whenever this rose started to bloom along came the bumblebees with their wonderful high pitched BUZZ. It did flower until the end of July but then a long lull until just a couple of weeks ago when it has flowered once more.

My most successful rose was ‘Jeepers Creepers

A big hit with bumblebees!

Unfortunately now our bumblebees are rather scarce. I think according to other gardeners, many ‘repeat flowering’ roses were slow to return this year.

Dead heading is a must once ‘repeat flowering’ roses start to bloom for the first or second time… it really does encourage beautiful roses to bloom for longer.

Hopefully some of you joined me on my rose journey. I have great ‘rose’ hopes for next year, taking care of my precious plants and perhaps I could find a place for just one more rose?

More ways to help

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

By Vicky Harrison, founder of Embroidered Bees for West Penwith, and co-founder of Treneere Grows, from Penzance

I am stood in the wildflower garden with a robin singing loudly in the trees behind me. The sun is shining and there are new signs of life everywhere. It’s a little oasis of calm. I’ve just seen a Red mason bee, several female Hairy-footed flower bees and a huge Red-tailed bumblebee queen gorging on the spring flowers.

It’s the start of our second growing season and we’ve been waiting anxiously to see what reappears and what we lost in the drought last year. This wildflower garden has been made on a roundabout that is dry and hard, and was filled with lots of debris, making the ground stony and difficult to work. It’s right in the middle of Treneere Estate, Penzance, Cornwall. A driver honks their horn and puts a thumb up. We are winning over the neighbours.

Luckily as we stand here, myself and Jenny, the co-founder of Treneere Grows, can see things sprouting up everywhere. I get down on my knees and search for the clary plants that last year hosted tiny bees who slept all up the stems. I am growing fifty more plants at home to encourage more of these very sweet tiny bees.

Sometimes it seems like an eternity since we started this project. In 2019 I spent almost a year learning to grow wildflowers at Bosavern Farm. I had been concerned for a long time about wild bees and wanted to find ways to help them. At home I began to grow some and give them away on my front step with notes about how they could help the bees. As I learnt more, I really felt this was something that could make a small difference. If we all grew the correct plants, the insects would return.

I wanted to do something else for bees, so in 2019 I started two projects…

Bee-utiful handsewn art

The first is the Embroidered Bees for West Penwith Project. It took a break during covid but is now up and running again. It is an ongoing project making a huge art quilt. I run workshops or people make at home. It’s a way of people learning about and researching our native bees, including bumblebees, solitary bees, and honeybees. The participant then embroiders a bee on a hexagonal piece of fabric and it is sewn into the quilt. As the quilt grows, so does the community knowledge about bees. Eventually we will exhibit the quilt and ask for donations towards wildflower planting and projects.

Did you know…? There are over 270 different species of bee in the UK! 24 of these species are bumblebees, one species is the honeybee, but the biggest group are the solitary bees with over 250 species.

It’s one of those projects that ebbs and flows with new people coming on board and different ideas emerging at sessions.  One participant, Vivienne, has begun to paint the flowers in our community wildflower garden and is then embroidering them to add to the art quilt. She told me it has revived her interest in learning about wildflowers.

I am just about to sew another 57 bees into the quilt. Some are the same kinds of bees, some very general and some specific such as an embroidery of a Long-horned bee. These have a few sites in West Penwith. Others include Green-eyed flower bees, which have been spotted in our local subtropical Morrab Gardens, Pantaloon bees (AKA bees with big pants) and Ashy mining bees.

The project does have an impact. One participant Sue replanted her front garden with bee-friendly plants, which resulted in the arrival leaf cutter bees for the very first time.  Another built a big bee hotel in her garden. It’s very addictive. Many participants go home and start growing!

Planting for pollinators on Treneere roundabout

The second project I started was a Facebook group and seed and plant swap event for pollinators. A few people came along and swapped plants but the best part was the discussion about the need to create wildflower areas.

It was at this meeting I met Jenny Wren and eventually in early 2020 we formed Treneere Grows, with central aims of improving biodiversity and teaching people how to grow wildflowers in their own gardens. It’s been a long and bumpy journey, having to jump through many hoops, but today as I stand here it is all worth it!

There are 15 beds in the wildflower garden. We began growing in early 2020 . Each species we grow is researched for its usefulness to insects and wildlife or for its impact on the health of the soil. We grow mostly from seed in our own little gardens. Last summer I could not move for pots. Growing this way helps us really learn about the plants and be able to recognise them if they self-seed.  Our gardens also get visited by lots of curious bees and other insects. Yesterday a huge Hummingbird hawk-moth descended on some flowering ragged robin I am growing for a damp area.

Most of the plants are native perennials, many grown from locally collected seed, but we have included a few non-natives which are useful to insects. We have a moth bed where we plant specific plants for egg laying such as lady’s bedstraw for hawk-moths, a blue butterfly bed full of birdsfoot trefoils and a wild herb bed. Small Copper butterflies are provided with sorrel as their larvae foodplant. A variety of evening primrose (not native) attracts our moths at night.

The wild herb bed is stuffed with wild marjoram which is loved by many species of bees and I’ve been told leaf-cutter bees go wild for it. Certainly it is always covered in insects and bees.

There is a large meadow bed where we experimented with yellow rattle. It’s interesting seeing nature take care of itself. In this bed we have field scabious in the hope of attracting Scabious mining bees which are now very rare. One of the problems for insects is that some of them forage only on specific flowers so we like to plant them just in case.

In the summer we ran a workshop with our friends at Whole Again Communities CIC and taught young people how to collect seed. They were fascinated by facts such as red campion has male and female plants, and loved hunting to see if they could find different kinds of bees. In autumn we were also able to collect our own seed from corncockles, poppies and clary which we took home to begin again.

The tall weld was one of the first plants to flower last year and it attracted lots of tiny black bees with white or yellow faces, possibly masked bees, and for the whole summer one patch of red clover was patrolled by a very handsome Wool carder bee. In the sunshine the place hummed with White-tailed bumblebees and Red-tailed bumblebees, which love greater birdsfoot trefoil, and a myriad of bees we haven’t yet formally identified. There are plants here for both long and short tongued bees and from spring right through into late autumn.

It’s a difficult job as the grass encroaches on the beds all the time and people walk over them in winter, but slowly some things are taking hold. It’s important to improve the soil so we planted lots of chicory, red clover and vetches all to bring up nutrients and improve the soil quality. The thing about these plants is that the bees love them too. The chicories flower for a very long time and, because they have a deep tap root, can survive drought.

We have also planted in swathes of the same plant as we know bees use a lot of energy collecting and so it’s important to plant things close together in patches of the same plant.  There are red campions, white campions, dark mullein, comfrey, knapweed, selfheal and ox-eye daisies. We are planning to fill a bed with clary for the tiny sleepy bees.

By Autumn 2022 the whole garden was humming with life, bees going about their business, Clouded yellow butterflies, Common blue butterflies breeding in the birdsfoot trefoil, grasshoppers bouncing about, hundreds of hoverflies, ladybirds, beetles, it was all happening. Underground we found May bugs. They live there for up to four years before they emerge for a few weeks in spring and are food for some of the larger bats. This was hugely satisfying given that an initial survey before we planted found one Red-tailed bumblebee and one ant.

The future is looking bright as we have just planted an area outside out local shops with lots of herbs and two shade beds under the trees, and fruit trees and spring bulbs in another area. In the autumn we will be planting another large area next to a pathway across the road from the wildflower garden. We have also been giving away wildflowers and helping people plants them in their gardens. We want to create as much habitat as possible. We even persuaded our local council to let us dig up the grass verge next to the pavement and plant things like thyme and selfheal.

Ultimately, we want to create a wildflower corridor right through the Treneere Estate!

If you live in or around Penzance and want to get involved, find us on Facebook by searching ‘Treneere Grows’ or ‘Embroidered Bees for West Penwith’.

More ways to help

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