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Buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) by Jade Oliver

My pollinator garden

Buff-tailed bumblebee on pink hydrangea

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!