Flowers to Attract Bees and Butterflies to Your Garden
Flowers, trees and shrubs add beauty and value to your home landscape. With this natural beauty comes the delightful potential of attracting butterflies and bees to your garden. Some of the plants I have started from seed are shown below. Some are annuals and others are perennials. They are all quite suitable for the budding gardening enthusiast.
Coneflowers such as this Purple coneflower on the left are very attractive to bees and butterflies. They are a perennial plant meaning they come back each year. They reseed quite successfully so once you have planted some in your garden you will have volunteers in the following years.
Zinnias are visited by butterflies as well as bees in August and September. Zinnias are an old- fashioned annual. They are readily available in dwarf to tall varieties with many colors and differing petal compositions. They are very easy to grow from seed.
Columbines are an eye-catching attraction for bees in May and June creating much attention in the late spring garden. They are a perennial and will return each spring to the garden.
Marigolds are very easy to grow from seed. They are available in white, yellow, and shades of orange. Dwarf and tall annual varieties can be grown for blooms throughout the summer season. Bees enjoy visiting the marigold flowers.
Russell Lupines are appealing to butterflies and bees. They are a stately flower in the garden in June. They are perennial and seed can be collected and sown for flowers the next year.
Maltese-cross - Lychnis is a perennial plant. Lychnis makes a brilliant statement with its vivid red color. They can grow up to three feet tall. They are easy to propagate from seed and provide a long period of bloom in the garden.
Evening primrose grows readily from seed and are attractive to bees. It is a perennial and reseeds quite abundantly in the garden. Some may consider it invasive if left unchecked.
It is fun to watch bees opening the "door" to the inside of the snapdragons in the garden. They go deep inside the flower to gather the pollen. They come in a variety of colors and range from dwarf in height to quite tall. An annual, they are quite reliable self seeders producing plants year after year after initial sowing.
Swan River Daisy is a delicate flower that grows very quickly from seed. The seed can be scattered in containers in spring and left to germinate. As long as moisture is maintained, you will be rewarded with a colorful display in quite a short period of time.
Foxgloves are a bee magnet in the late spring garden. Bees seem to hide deep inside the flower. They can grow quite tall up to three feet or so. They are a biennial, meaning they product a mound of leaves the first year and produce tall spikes of flowers in the second year. Once planted in the garden, the seeds are easy to gather after the flowers are spent, The plants often self-seed providing additional plants for following years.
Annual asters are visited by the bees and butterflies in your garden. They are quite easy to grow from seed outdoors after danger of frost. They come in pretty pastel colors such as mauve, pink and white.
