Nectar-rich beds and baskets
Amateur Gardening|June 19, 2021
Plant out summer bedding, hanging baskets and containers that provide food for bees and butterflies to help make your garden a wildlife haven, says Hazel Sillver
Hazel Sillver
Nectar-rich beds and baskets

ENJOY the sight of bees and butterflies in the garden this summer by selecting wildlife-friendly bedding plants for borders and hanging baskets. Single-flowered choices, such as cosmos, give pollinators access to nectar, whereas traditional bedding plants (including double French marigolds) have such layers of petals as a result of horticultural breeding that the nectar and pollen are unreachable.

On top of this, the single-flowered and semi-double species that wildlife feed on have a more contemporary look, injecting the garden with refreshing new life. Increasingly, councils are planting this type of bedding in parks and on roundabouts, both to help wildlife and to create a modern look.

Another change is that summer bedding is planted in layers, as a border would be, with ‘see-through’ airy plants and tall plants providing height at the back. The days of park flowerbeds being a flat sea of double begonias, pansies and petunias, with not a bee or butterfly in sight, are gone.

Butterflies and bees

One of the best bedding plants for butterflies is sweetly scented heliotrope, such as ice-blue ‘Reva’ and violet ‘Nautilus Power Blue’. They also flock to vervain, including the airy purple Verbena bonariensis ‘Lollipop’, which can be used to create layers, and lipstick-pink Glandularia ‘Sissinghurst’, which looks lovely tumbling out of a pot on the patio.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة June 19, 2021 من Amateur Gardening.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة June 19, 2021 من Amateur Gardening.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.