Save the Bees! Plant THESE Flowers to Attract & Sustain Our Pollinators!

Create a Bee-loving Habitat at Home

According to EnvironmentIllinois,

Bees pollinate 71 of the 100 plants that provide 90% of the world’s food…

And beekeepers have been among the first to note that they’re losing bees in record numbers due to loss of habitat, global warming, parasites, and insecticides.

Read on to learn how you can help the situation right in your own garden.

How You Can Help

Aside from reducing our carbon footprint and fighting bee-killing chemicals used by big Agra, you can help by creating a bee-friendly habitat and by planting flowers that attract bees. According to the HoneyBee Conservancy, their top tips for making your space a bee-friendly environment can help in the fight to sustain the bee population.

Here’s how:

1. Plant native flowers. Native flowers are simply plants that thrive in our natural area. They require neither chemical fertilizer nor pesticides. Among the list for the Chicago area, we have:

• Mayapple
• Wild quinine
• Purple Prairie Clover
• Shooting Star
• Prairie Smoke
• Meadowsweet
• Northern Sea Oats
• Wild Bergamot
• Virginia Blue Bells
• Wild Geranium
• Jacob’s Ladder
• Wild Columbine
• White False Indigo
• Trumpet Penstemon
• Little Bluestem
• Bloodroot/Red Indian Paint/Red Puccoon
• California Poppy
• Indian Blanketflower or Firewheel
• Nodding Wild Onion
• Butterfly Weed
• Blazingstar
• Blue Flag Iris
• Canadian Wild Ginger
• Wild Indigo
• New England Aster
• Early Coreopsis
• Pale Purple Coneflower, Purple Coneflower, Orange Coneflower, Greenheaded Coneflower
• Eastern Daisy Fleabane
• Bachelor’s Button/Cornflower/Bluebottle
• Sneezeweed
• Swamp Sunflower/Appalachian Sunflower/Small Woodland Sunflower/ThinLeaf or Forest Sunflower/Common Sunflower
• Phlox
• Cardinal Flower/Scarlet Lobelia, Great Blue Lobelia/Blue Cardinal Flower
• Sweet Pea
• Oxeye Daisy
• Yellow Flag Iris/Crested Dwarf Iris
• Black-eyed Susan
• Rattlesnake Master
• Wild Petunia

2. When choosing flowers for your native garden, select single flower tops such as Coneflower rather than double flower tops. Single head tops produce more nectar that also is easier for bees to access.

3. Plan your garden for as close to year-round blooms as you can. You can begin in the late winter with crocus and snowdrops and carry on with very late-season blooms, like Hyacinth Beans and asters.

4. Avoid using herbicides/pesticides in your lawn and garden unless they are natural and organic.

5. Avoid hybridized plants that have been bred not to seed.

6. Build homes for solitary bees by leaving sunny spots in your garden.

7. Supply fresh, shallow water for bees to drink from. You can do this by filling a shallow container with pebbles (for the bees to land on) and by ensuring the water supply within it is fresh.

What You Can Do

You can help make a difference by:

• planting any of the flowers recommended above
• telling the EPA to stop allowing the use of bee-killing pesticides
• creating a bee-friendly habitat in your yard and, finally,
• stop using herbicides that are not organic

We here at Anne Roberts Gardens care deeply about the environment and do our best to employ sustainable, positive-impact solutions to your Chicago landscaping needs. Feel free to contact us if you have an issue or project that you’d like to discuss. We’d be happy to talk with you.