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Starting a Bee Garden
Winter is a good time to establish bee plants in your garden. The rainy season creates a good environment for new plants to establish deep roots. Since many plants require planting or seeding 1-6 months before they can bloom, it’s helpful to start thinking ahead now for our pollinator friends!
A couple tips for starting your bee garden:
1. Choose a variety of plants with different blooming seasons. This will provide bees who visit your garden with delicious food throughout the year! Below we have some great examples of bee plants for the Spring, Summer, and Fall seasons.
Spring: Ceanothus ‘Ray Hartman’, Echium candicans, Phacelia cicutaria, Salvia brandegeei
Spring/Summer: Eschscholzia californica, Rudbeckia hirta, Eryngium spp., Helianthus annuus
Summer/Fall: Cosmos bipinnatus, Perovskia atriplicifolia, Salvia uliginosa, Vitex agnus-castus
2. Create good nesting areas for native bees. This includes leaving bare soil for ground-nesting bees (unmulched!), empty plant stems for cavity-nesting bees, or investing in building bee condos and nesting blocks. Leaving a nice area for bees to raise young will ensure future generations of visitors to your garden!
3. Plant each plant species in large patches, with a great diversity overall. Native bees species are more likely to visit their preferred food source when it exists in one large, easily forageable patch. In addition, having a wide diversity of plant species will more closely resemble the native Californian environments that native bees forage.
Interested in learning more? Visit our website here or read our book California Bees & Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists to find more tips!
Pictured: Salvia brandegeei, a great springtime bee plant
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