Welcome, Guest

Author Topic: bee flower garden  (Read 30385 times)

Offline jaseemtp

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 330
  • Gender: Male
bee flower garden
« on: April 27, 2011, 12:15:25 pm »
Ok, so I have the wifes approval to redo the flower bed in the front of the house.  I am in Texas zone 7 / 8.  It does get pretty hot here and the garden area gets at least 6 hours of sun daily, mostly in the morning.  I am looking for bee friendly plants to plant.  The spot is 4feet wide and 25 feet long.  Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Jason
"It's better to die upon your feet than to live upon your knees!" Zapata

Offline SerenaSYH

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 121
  • Gender: Female
Re: bee flower garden
« Reply #1 on: May 03, 2011, 02:14:58 am »
ooo, Russian sage is the perfect plant! and they can take blasting heat and pretty bad soil. My front lawn has a huge maple that is destroying my lawn because of its huge thick long tree roots that keep pushing way past the actual tree itself yet the Russian sage seems to be very happy and can tolerate the tree zapping away all the soil nutrients. They are in full sun, however which makes them able to bloom profusely. Honeybees are crazy about Russian sage. They also make very beautiful winter foliage.

Offline AllenF

  • Galactic Bee
  • ******
  • Posts: 8192
  • Gender: Male
Re: bee flower garden
« Reply #2 on: May 03, 2011, 10:25:40 pm »
Kudzu honey is great and just one plant should cover the 25 foot of ground in about 2 weeks.  And you do not have to worry about weeding the front yard ever again.   Really just about anything that blooms will work.   You are just looking for a place to look at your bees.   Plant several plants that bloom at different times through the summer.

Offline SerenaSYH

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 121
  • Gender: Female
Re: bee flower garden
« Reply #3 on: May 04, 2011, 02:39:48 am »
YIKES, Allen, kudzu honey may be delicious, but it is an extremely, dangerously invasive plant. The U.S. government has issued warnings about it. And all architects realize what a bad plant this is. I used to work for several architectural firms. And it was actually the architects who regretted this terrible error because at first they were one of the first to introduce it to the U.S. Allen you will need to get rid of this plant as soon as possible I'm thinking. Once it grabs a hold of your property it will choke out all other vegetation.

Type in the words "Kudzu in the United States" in Wikipedia, and it will show you a pretty terrifying image of how invasive this plant is.. I've been prevented (being too new to the forum to post links) but if you type in that phrase into Wikipedia you'll find all the information on it...

Offline Shawn

  • Queen Bee
  • ****
  • Posts: 1225
  • Gender: Male
Re: bee flower garden
« Reply #4 on: May 04, 2011, 10:15:55 am »
You might want to go through the old post because I know Cindi and others have put out a list of good plants. I used a lot of the flowers off the list and always see bees around them. Some that I have planted and are doing good are the Cat Mint, Salvia, Liatris, and another one that looks like a blue ball of thistle, forgot the name. The soil here is Southeast Colorado is sandy, weather gets hot just like Texas, 100s, and very very DRY! Some day I;; take a photograph of my water bill and post it  :roll:

Offline VolunteerK9

  • Super Bee
  • *****
  • Posts: 1647
  • Gender: Male
  • Gamecock fan in UT land.
Re: bee flower garden
« Reply #5 on: May 04, 2011, 10:45:40 am »
YIKES, Allen, kudzu honey may be delicious, but it is an extremely, dangerously invasive plant.

Quick....batten down the hatches!  :-D

It's all over the South-along every roadside, but Ive yet to see a Pine tree choked into submission by it

After all, the Japanese beetles we imported will eventually wipe it out, just as soon as they get filled up from stuff in my garden  :lau:

Offline Shawn

  • Queen Bee
  • ****
  • Posts: 1225
  • Gender: Male
Re: bee flower garden
« Reply #6 on: May 04, 2011, 12:20:14 pm »
I believe Colorado got a warning about the beetle last year, not sure if they have been seen or not. I think the article said all trees imported must be Quarantine for so many days. My parents have the beetles in Indiana pretty bad when the fruit comes on.

Offline Brian D. Bray

  • Heavenly Beekeeper
  • Heavenly Beekeeper
  • Galactic Bee
  • ********
  • Posts: 7369
  • Gender: Male
  • I really look like this, just ask Cindi.
    • http://spaces.msn.com/thecoonsden
Re: bee flower garden
« Reply #7 on: May 04, 2011, 04:13:23 pm »
Yes Kudzu is an extremely invasive plant.  Around my youngest brother's place any area not taken up by a building, body of water, cultivated lawn or garden, or roadway, is overgrown with both Kudzu and blackberries.  Kudzu blooms immediately after the blackberries in my area so he gets a very heavy honey flow from mid to late summer. 
Just because it's invasive doesn't mean you can't let your bees take advantage of the available nectar source.
Life is a school.  What have you learned?   :brian:      The greatest danger to our society is apathy, vote in every election!

Offline jaseemtp

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 330
  • Gender: Male
Re: bee flower garden
« Reply #8 on: May 04, 2011, 05:22:19 pm »
I guess kudzu does not grow well in north Texas or it has not been introduced to our area.  If that is the case I do not want to be the person who brings it hear.  If it is growing here then I have no problem growing some of my own.
Jason
"It's better to die upon your feet than to live upon your knees!" Zapata

Offline AllenF

  • Galactic Bee
  • ******
  • Posts: 8192
  • Gender: Male
Re: bee flower garden
« Reply #9 on: May 04, 2011, 10:18:46 pm »
The highway department spreads that stuff around every time they mow the sides of the roads.    That is how come it grows on the shoulder of every road here in Georgia.  That and the fact it can grow 12 inches a day.
 

Offline SerenaSYH

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 121
  • Gender: Female
Re: bee flower garden
« Reply #10 on: May 04, 2011, 10:36:49 pm »
oh, no, kudzu is very terrible stuff and extremely expensive to remove. You will regret it terribly once it gets a hold of your land. People try to burn it, it comes up stronger than ever, it's that brutal of a plant. As Brian says too it is extremely invasive, but soon there will be no blackberries either. That kudzu will eat up your entire area. If you Google just for kudzu images you can see what I'm saying. Lol, about Batten down the hatches, hehe, but uh, Pine trees DON'T STAND A CHANCE against Kudzu. Kudzu has swallowed up entire forests. Give it a couple of years. Nothing will be left.

Here is the Wikipedia link...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kudzu_in_the_United_States

"Kudzu kills or damages other plants by smothering them under a blanket of leaves, encompassing tree trunks, breaking branches, or even uprooting entire trees."

It damages waterways as well:
"Kudzu has increased the concentration of atmospheric NOx in the eastern United States, which causes a 2 ppb increase in tropospheric ozone during high temperature events in addition to soil acidification, aluminum mobilization, and leaching of NO3- into aquatic ecosystems.[2]"

"Kudzu is also a ‘structural parasite,’ meaning that, rather than supporting itself, it grows on top of other plants and buildings to reach light. Its ability to reproduce and spread quickly allows it to quickly cover shrubs, trees, and forests, where it blocks the sun’s rays from the plants below it, decreasing or completely eliminating their photosynthetic productivity"

"Much is known about the economic impact of kudzu in the United States. $100–500 million is lost per year in forest productivity.[3] In addition, it takes about $5,000 per ha per year to control kudzu.[3] For power companies, it costs about $1.5 million per year to repair damage to power lines.[3]"

I am just rushing to write this out of concern for Allen. He actually has this stuff on his property and I dread what will happen within a few years...

but o.k. enough off topic, poor Jason! We need more Shawn and others to help Jason with a benign bee garden, lol! O.K. what I should mention to Jason is if his wife enjoys herbs, the absolute best herbs for the honeybee is Italian oregano. They like it far better than the catmint. Everyone has great luck with catmint except for me :( but it's great to have something a human can eat instead of just the cats, lol! Also Jason, my friend Boxofrox, a rose gardener, swears by sedum as being an absolute bee magnet, and the flowers have lots of charm to them. I just planted one this spring to test try in my garden. I found a YouTube video for you, Jason, which shows tons of bees swarming the sedum....

All Bees Love Sedum

Offline Shanevrr

  • Field Bee
  • ***
  • Posts: 507
  • Gender: Male
Re: bee flower garden
« Reply #11 on: May 04, 2011, 10:44:52 pm »
SerenaSYH you must type fast lol, my eyes hurt from reading your posts. you certainly know your stuff
www.Valleybeesupply.com
"A responsible beekeeper is a successful one"
Shane C.

Offline jaseemtp

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 330
  • Gender: Male
Re: bee flower garden
« Reply #12 on: May 04, 2011, 10:49:25 pm »
Thank you Serenasyh for the info. I have planted some oregano, but it has not been growing long enough to bloom.  I enjoyed the vidoe of the sedum and will be looking for seeds for it tomorrow.  I also planted mint, but not the cat mint, I am not a big fan of cats and dont want any of them around. Thanks again
Jason
"It's better to die upon your feet than to live upon your knees!" Zapata

Offline SerenaSYH

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 121
  • Gender: Female
Re: bee flower garden
« Reply #13 on: May 06, 2011, 11:05:37 pm »
Hi, Jason! I don't think bees particularly like mint, and rose gardeners always regret planting it in their garden. However, agastache is a member of the mint family that honeybees do like and it doesn't have the weedy problems that mint does. A few select Agastache Hyssop plants are sterile and stay in one manageable clump and bring tons of lovely color to the garden. All agastache versions are butterfly magnets. However, not all agastache hyssop honeybees like. The ones on the good nectar plants thread I don't have, unfortunately. Honeybees love the tightly clustering hyssop of the pale purple version-- the anise hyssop. The link below shows the one that Honeybees like.

http://www.heronswood.com/resources/Heronswood/images/products/processed/06565.zoom.a.jpg

This link below shows an example of the wrong kind of agastache, which I have. Do not get these trumpetlike ones. They are beloved by the carpenter bee, and unless you like holes drilled all over your patio do not get it. My honeybees did not like this agastache. I dug up every single one of mine, but could not bear to ditch the last one. The colors were so beautiful and it made me pretty sad to get rid of all of mine.

http://www.botanicgardensblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/tmpphpqLmaqV.jpg

But I still say that the best garden plant you'll ever get for the honeybees is Russian sage. It is so beautiful both in the summer and the wintertime and has one of the longest bloom seasons for a plant. It can bloom from July until November, and it takes the first snow to make mine stop blooming. Bees are as crazy about Russian sage as they are with clover and swarm the entire plant. It makes for gorgeous hedging and is disease and pest free! If you have a neighbor who has a shoot, get it from them. RS grows very well. It is very difficult to grow RS from seed I have read online. But it divides very, very easily.

Here is a photo of the Russian sage growing with the roses!

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4030/4696324008_59a942b934.jpg

http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff108/kristinwebber/beaut0002.png

Pictures often paint a thousand words, and helps show how beautiful Russian sage can be and BEE!

Offline joebrown

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 245
  • Gender: Male
Re: bee flower garden
« Reply #14 on: May 07, 2011, 04:46:01 am »
Well typically anything that butterflies and hummingbirds like a bee will like as well. After all, they are looking for the same thing, nectar and pollen. I went to Lowes Hardware last week and bought a butterfly and hummingbird wild flower mix. They claim there are over 100,000 seeds in each pack. A pack will cover 1200 square feet and it was only $9.95. You cannot beat that! I also bought some seed starter pellets, but that is not required! Good Luck, I planted mine on 5/2/2011.

Offline jaseemtp

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 330
  • Gender: Male
Re: bee flower garden
« Reply #15 on: May 07, 2011, 11:59:41 am »
Thanks for the help y'all.  I did go Lowes and found Russina sageand per SerenaSYHs advise I got them.  I bought 4 and plan on going back and getting 4 more of them.  I have some Vitex planted, they came in 30 gallon containers so I hope that those will start blooming soon.  I know I can not provide for all the bees needs, but why not try to help them out.  I figure I have the space why not.
Jason
"It's better to die upon your feet than to live upon your knees!" Zapata

Offline BlueBee

  • Galactic Bee
  • ******
  • Posts: 4587
  • Gender: Male
Re: bee flower garden
« Reply #16 on: May 08, 2011, 12:03:15 am »
I have a few Vitex planted here in Michigan.  The tops die down to the ground here, but the roots never die and the new growth shoots up 6’ here making them a nice purple flowering summer bush.  My Vitex is covered with bees in the summer, but usually NOT honey bees!  They are covered with great big carpenter bees.  The bumbles also like the Vitex. 

I do see an occasional honey bee on the Vitex, but mostly carpenter bees.  We usually have nectar flowing all summer long here on various plants and my guess is the honey bees are foraging on clover and milkweeds here as opposed to the Vitex.  In a drier climate without the other nectar options, the honey bees may pay more attention to the Vitex.

Offline North Bee

  • Brood
  • Posts: 1
  • Gender: Male
Re: bee flower garden
« Reply #17 on: May 14, 2011, 08:10:29 am »
Kudzu blooms immediately after the blackberries in my area so he gets a very heavy honey flow from mid to late summer. 
Since like me you are in Washington state, I hope when you say kudzu you actually mean japanese knot weed?

Offline AllenF

  • Galactic Bee
  • ******
  • Posts: 8192
  • Gender: Male
Re: bee flower garden
« Reply #18 on: May 14, 2011, 09:34:35 am »

Offline Brian D. Bray

  • Heavenly Beekeeper
  • Heavenly Beekeeper
  • Galactic Bee
  • ********
  • Posts: 7369
  • Gender: Male
  • I really look like this, just ask Cindi.
    • http://spaces.msn.com/thecoonsden
Re: bee flower garden
« Reply #19 on: May 16, 2011, 04:33:34 pm »
Kudzu blooms immediately after the blackberries in my area so he gets a very heavy honey flow from mid to late summer. 
Since like me you are in Washington state, I hope when you say kudzu you actually mean japanese knot weed?

Kudzu, Japanese know weed, and Elephant ear, same plant.  There are other plants called Elephant ear in other areas so the nickname that was popular for it in the 50's and 60's isn't used as much these days.
Life is a school.  What have you learned?   :brian:      The greatest danger to our society is apathy, vote in every election!