THE MODERN MINT BLOG
Harlow Beekeepers
Last Thursday night I was invited to give a talk ‘Planting for Pollinators’ at Harlow Bees, a beekeeping group who help promote the craft of keeping bees in Harlow.
It was an interesting evening exploring how two complementary crafts – beekeeping and gardening – co-exist in there similar aims of helping bees (and other pollinators.)
Below are some notes answering questions the group asked me from the talk:
1. The Best Plants For Bees
- helenium
- sedum
- oregano
- borage
- veronicastrum
- teucrium
- calamint
- eupatorium
- centaurea
- lavender
This research comes from the work done by Rosi Rollings at Rosybee. She has been asking the question ‘which bee-friendly plants attract the most bees?’
You can read why and how she set-up this work in this interview we made with her a few years ago.
2. This is what Helenium, the most valuable plant for bees, looks like…
It is easy to grow, makes a great cut flower and is beautiful too. Get it into your gardens!
3. Remember the following when choosing flowers for the garden…
Right plant, right place – a happy, healthy plant growing in conditions it enjoys will provide preferred forage for the bees.
Plant in blocks of flowers, so that bees don’t waste energy trying to find another nectar/pollen source.
Get some blossoming trees into your gardener early in the year.
Topiary is easier to look after – a plant like Escallonia is great for clipping but also a bee magnet, so can be left uncut (and so full of flowers) until it grows too large for your garden… then you can easily reduce it down to size and let it start growing again, year on year.
4. Using Pesticides, Herbicides or Insecticides will harm your bees
If your garden flowers are suffering from pest damage, plant trees. These will provide somewhere for birds to visit, who in turn will deal with the bug problem.
No flower is too important or special it needs to be sprayed with a poison to make it look better. Plus, the best flowers for bees normally don’t show the art of the plant breeder – note the Helenium above!
5. Plant organic bulbs
You can read all about that in this blog Organic Bulbs.
Or via John Walker, the Earth Friendly Gardener, in the Telegraph.
We will make an order for Bee Friendly Bulbs in the summer, so will let you know then if you want to buy some!
If you live in and around Harlow and want to know more about bees and beekeeping – why not get in touch with the group?
Why I Wrote The Book Modern Topiary
I have written this book, Modern Topiary, because I wanted a collation of useful information that would give people access to everything they need to know in order to start making topiary. Topiary is an amazing (and niche) line of work to follow – amazing because it offers up opportunities to travel all over the world, making gardens, meeting people… but also, the work is intensely physical, hands-on, yet requires creative thinking in order to solve the puzzle of how to make the shapes you want. This mixture of the craft and the art is what I love the most …
Buxus the Norfolk Terrier In Modern Topiary Book
This is Buxus, our Norfolk Terrier, who I acknowledge in the acknowledgments of the book of Modern Topiary. The book of Modern Topiary can be read, for free, here. There you go. Buxus the dog on ‘doorstep duty’ at a friend’s house in Edinburgh. For those asking what he looked like!
What People Think Of Modern Topiary, The Book
Yesterday I put out the book – Modern Topiary – that I have spent the last six years writing. Download for free a pdf of Modern Topiary here. And what seems amazing to me, is that not only have people actually been reading it, but then responding to it. So below are a number of comments I have been sent from those who read it last night, and this morning…. “Brilliant read, exactly the right amount of info to take in and digest.” Rachel, a gardener “I love your book, the advice is so straightforward and your writing is so …