Bee friendly flowers for hanging baskets

Didn't know where I should post this but here goes.
As a community councillor I requested that the hanging baskets we put out this year have a good selection of pollinator friendly plants - all the councillors agreed and muggins was tasked to liaise with the youth officer (our local youth group do all the baskets for the two villages) I am a keen gardener but like my grandfather if it aint a cauliflower it must be a cabbage I'm no good with flowers. So I sent off the RHS list of bee friendly flowers to the officer concerned to pass on to the nurseryman to make a selection, but when the baskets were put up it was obvious IT WAS TOTALLY IGNORED just the usual hanging basket lobelias et al, not even a geranium.
So before long I want to put before council exact specifications of what goes into each basket (consider also that budgets are tight) so the nurseryman has no excuse like 'too late to plant those now'
I know there must be a few on this forum who are dab handers with their flora
so being lazy - could I have a few suggestions for a colourful and pollinator friendly hanging basket display for the Aman valley - make a change from talking supers if nothing else

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I have nursed many basket flowers and my hobby is bee frienly flowers.

What I have tried, Sutera cordata known as the Bacopa is quite good. Bees and bumblebees collect pollen from frowers.



basket plants have many other demands than bee friendly

- tolerate draught and do not loose flowers in draught
- are open in clowdy day
. blooms whole summer
- tolerate rain

A flower in basket gives a day job only to one bee. It has no meaning.

jenkinsbrynmair said:

Didn't know where I should post this but here goes.
As a community councillor I requested that the hanging baskets we put out this year have a good selection of pollinator friendly plants -

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You are not afraid of political consecquensies.

The Mayor of Moscow was kicked off because he went to nurse his beehives but according the president he should go to look damages of forest fires on county.

Perhaps it was time to go because Juri Lužkovin was born 1936


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City order: Every citizen must cultivate geraniums....WOW.

That is one way to retire... I thought that a door eye is good in work room door.

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This is lifted from the BKA list( P - pollen,N - nectar A - autumn planting S- spring planting)
Cosmos ( July – Aug) PN Pansies– Universal range (Sep – May) N [A/S] Viola – V. cornuta (Apr– Oct) N [A/S] Sweet violet. V.odorata [A/S]

There's a more comprehensive list of bee friendly shrubs and trees on their website.

The geraniums I've noticed the bees going for are the cranesbill variety and the bacopa finman posted about is usually sold in garden centres around here for hanging baskets.

The flowering shrub the bees are really going for at the moment has purply blue balls of star shaped flowers

Cosmos a bit tall for hanging baskets, I should think.
Fuchsias I'm told are good for bees and hanging basket varieties exist; I can't vouch for this as I'm rubbish at growing fuchsias

Saw both honeybees and bumbles all over ivy leaved toadflax yesterday, might be good as trails a lot,not really in the class of council hanging basket plants though. Also sedums, not the big ice plant but there are plenty of others, yellow, white and red flowered. These trail as well as having top (sticky up) growth. Thymes? Geraniums I think would need to be the cranesbill types, most of these are biggish and fall over easily though so not good for baskets? Of course Finmans selection Bacopa is a basket plant, didnt realise any good for bees though.

Oh yes, forgot, Fushcias, good for pollen:.)

Why not push for trees instead? I know they can't be planted in the same places you'd stick hanging baskets but the annual costs of hanging baskets and the watering is more than the cost of planting the right trees in the right places.

Plant some fruit trees, hazels, sallows, etc - there are plenty of summer flowers in most areas - but what I seem to be reading about is the importance of filling the gaps in the rest of the year.

alldigging said:

Why not push for trees instead? .

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I would but they make the baskets unstable!!

Trees we have plenty of - thanks to the high winds we had a few months ago a lot of conifers on the ols reclaimed coal tip came down and I am pushing for replacement with broad leaved trees - hazel and willow we have in abundance. but the strategically placed hanging baskets are very popular - some householders volunteer their walls to attach them to, they make a poor community a pleasant place .

I have read the RHS lists but my handicap is picturing them in a hanging basket - as I said i'm a vegetable and fruit tree man and apart from a penchant for lupins, honeysuckle and lavender I have utterly no interest in cultivating flowers.
Although for years like my grandfather I loved Chrysanthemums until I was bearer in a funeral where the deceased had lain undiscovered for a month in a centrally heated bathroom (smell still haunts me now )

Trailing Thymes should do.

From the way my first lot of Facelia is doing, I'd think that might do well. (And produce umpteen thousand seeds to have useful weeds springing up randomly everywhere.) Not sure how well it would go as part of a mixture in one basket though ...

http://www.themelissagarden.com/TMG_Vetaley031608.htm


I've got some phacelia seeds via a garden forum - should self seed once established but not sure how tall they are - suspect too tall for hanging baskets

Phacelia grow up to 1 metre tall: unsuitable for all but the largest baskets..

madasafish said:

Phacelia grow up to 1 metre tall: unsuitable for all but the largest baskets..

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Thing is, mine haven't grown straight up. They flop about all over the ground before the upwards bit. Its as though the stem was too floppy to bear more than a certain height (about half a metre?) Hence I think it would make an interesting basket! But not as part of a mixture ...
And they seem to produce an awful lot of seeds! If you are going to have weeds, have good ones!

alldigging said:

http://www.themelissagarden.com/TMG_Vetaley031608.htm

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that list has so much raw mistakes that it has been taken from air.

It says the some plants make honey even if they no never.

1000 honey from acre......wow. Like money printing...wow.

...too much mistakes which tells that
the author does not have real knowledge about bees or about plants.
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you should have gone for wine barrels and planted HB
Good luck with this mission rather you than me

REDWOOD said:

you should have gone for wine barrels and planted HB
Good luck with this mission rather you than me

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Got plenty of HB thanks Redwood! just thought as the baskets were a done deal (we've had them for the best part of 10 years) I'd ask for help in making them bee friendly as I'm pretty crap at flowery arranging things so rather than being lazy and leaving things as they are I thought i'd be lazy and get the forumites teeth into the subject

Can we have some pictures when they're done, please

Might be an idea to stick in some herbs - mints, oregano, lemon balm, trailing (creeping) thymes, chives, prostrate rosemary, wild strawberry, heliotrope and as already mentioned cranesbill, bacopa. In winter - ivy, crocus, grape hyacinth and heathers and maybe hellebores.
And yes pictures please

Easy Beesy said:

Might be an idea to stick in some herbs - mints, oregano, lemon balm, trailing (creeping) thymes, chives, prostrate rosemary, wild strawberry, heliotrope and as already mentioned cranesbill, bacopa. In winter - ivy, crocus, grape hyacinth and heathers and maybe hellebores.
And yes pictures please

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They come down in winter so I'll probably stick to annuals and maybe the odd fragrant herb (seems a waste tho as they'll get chucked in autumn) the emphasis has to be on visual effect in the main - if I get it up and running i'll definitely post photos.
Bit of material to work on now though - thanks all

I have lobelia in hanging baskets and tubs and much to my surprise my bees are all over them..they leave the 53 lavenders I planted to the bumbles