Jacqueline Houston is a member of the Wedgwood Garden Club, and also a Master Gardener of King County. She has been gardening in Seattle for over 30 years and
now has a garden consulting/coaching business called Enchanted Garden Consulting. Wedgwood Garden Club always welcomes new members – contact Jacqueline at
tppoems@comcast.net for more information on our monthly meetings.
This year I noticed an apparent decline in the number of bees in my garden – 3 fellow gardeners witnessed the same, though others did not – and also a change in their behavior. Whereas in the past they tended to browse around a variety of plants at any given time, this year I noticed a feeding frenzy on one or two particularly popular plants, and not much activity on other plants.
So I spent late spring (which is when I noticed the change) and all summer, intensively observing which were the star performers in my garden – from a bee’s perspective that is – and compiling a list.
Columbines were the stars of April, along with a pale pink hardy geranium and yellow Welsh poppies as April transitioned into May. But May really belonged to California Lilac ‘Victoria’ and a big old pyracantha, both swarming with bees for about 3 or 4 weeks while other plants were ignored.
Catmint performed well in late May to June, and kept on flowering with regular haircuts of old flower stems.
By July, Persicaria ‘Firetail’ began its 3 months of bee-magnet flowering (keep dead-heading, it really pays off), with a mullein called Verbascum ‘Wedding Candles’ also drawing the crowds. Hardy geranium ‘Rozanne’, a blue Veronica, and Knautia all did well, and the blue globes of echinops always had bees on them.
Next year I plan to start observing earlier, and try out some plants that I saw performing very well elsewhere – a Russian sage had bees on it even inside Sky nursery, and eryngium (sea holly) was smothered in them in a Portland garden I visited. I love to hear my garden buzzing with contented bees, and I am happy to tweak my plant palate to get more of them.