The easiest way to find out whether you already have insect-friendly beds in your garden is to simply close your eyes for a moment amidst your fruit trees, vegetable plants, flowers, perennials and herbs. Now hear something humming and humming alongside the rustling of the leaves and the chirping of the birds. It would be nice for nature and the bumblebees, bees and beetles anyway, which unfortunately are becoming fewer and fewer every year. Short, really only very short cause research: Due to the advancing monoculture, the living space and the food supply of the flower visitors are becoming scarcer from year to year. Nevertheless, it would be fundamentally wrong to pass the buck to the farmers in general, because agriculture is not (only) to blame for this trend, but agricultural policy with its partly environmentally unfriendly subsidies.
The purple coneflowers literally attract bees
In 2014, beekeeper Hartmuth Herweg, the owner of the Grauhof monastery apiary in Goslar, gave clear words about the massive decline in bees, who formulated the economic consequences just as clearly as we will all see them in the future if things continue like this (quote) : “If there are no more bees, then there will be no more strawberries either. No jam without strawberries, which means that companies like Schwartau or Zentis no longer need people for processing. Then they no longer need any packaging, no technology, no marketing.”
Our gardens are now becoming all the more important and are increasingly becoming a popular meeting place for bumblebees, bees and the like. And what actually speaks against framing our garden paths and beds with colorful and healthy wildflowers? What could that be? Here is a small and by no means complete overview:
Insect friendly garden plants
| Surname | Botanical designation | blossom | height | properties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| borage aster | Aster novae-angliae | September to October | 130 to 140 cm | 5 cm large flowers |
| Red Coneflower | Echinacea purpurea | July to September | 80 to 100 cm | Favorite of the butterflies |
| mountain aster | Aster amellus | August to September | 65 to 75 cm | Insect-attracting tubular flowers |
| High sedum | Sedum telephium | September to October | 50 to 70 cm | Late blooming nectar source |
| Meadow Marguerite | Leucanthemum vugare | May to June and September | about 70 cm | Particularly rich in pollen |
| Dark blue nettle | Agastache rugosa | July to September | 70 to 90 cm | Favorite with bees and butterflies |
| Caucasus cranesbill | Geranium renardii | May to June | 35 to 55 cm | Ideal for bed borders |
| calamint | Calamintha nepeta | July to October | 30 to 50 cm | A particularly large number of single flowers |
The blossoming fruit trees in the gardens and the pussy willows are particularly bee-friendly in spring. A few weeks later they finally fly on thyme and lavender. Butterflies and hoverflies like to pamper themselves with the nectar of phlox and summer lilac. On the other hand, bumblebees are particularly fond of lupins, foxgloves and corn poppies. And if you want to have them all in your garden at once, simply plant a few globe thistles and blue nettles between the garden beds.
tips and tricks
Besides honey bees and butterflies, the most common flower visitors in our Central European latitudes are:
- forest hoverfly,
- six-spotted widow,
- parasitic wasp,
- dovetail,
- Large wool floater as well
- Shaggy Bee Beetle and
They all don't sting.