Sunday 23 June 2013

Plants for pollinators

My collection of plants for pollinators is growing apace and the bumblebees in particular seem well pleased, pollinating my peas, broad beans, raspberries and strawberries. Flowering this month have been phacelia, ox-eye daisies, perennial wallfower, sweet rocket, nepeta, wild roses, hardy geranium, corn poppies, knautia macedonia, cupid's dart, crimson clover, pink and bladder campions and love-in-a-mist. And new introductions this year have been vipers bugloss - a biennial which I sowed last year - and giant scabious, which I snaffled from someone's garden. There's been May blossom in the hedgerow and the one they're really mad for - cotoneaster.

Vipers bugloss (Echium vulgare)...

...soon being investigated.

Giant scabious (Cephaloria gigantea)...

...also arousing some interest...

...but the annual phacelia is still the most popular.

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