Flowers for Bees: Make a Bee Friendly Garden

If you’ve been searching for the best flowers for bees, you’ve landed in the right place. A bee-friendly garden is one of the most rewarding things you can create — good for the bees, good for your vegetable garden, and honestly just beautiful to look at. This post covers the best flowers, herbs, shrubs, and perennials for bees, plus one very important thing to know before you buy a single plant.

If you grow a vegetable garden, you already know that bees are not just nice to have — they are essential. Cucumbers, zucchini, squash, and a long list of other vegetables depend entirely on pollinators to produce a crop. No bees, no harvest. It really is that simple.

The numbers are sobering. The total number of managed honeybee hives has dropped by 50% since 1940, even as the world’s demand for pollinators has grown. Researchers estimate that one in every three bites of food we eat is the direct or indirect result of pollinator activity. That’s a staggering amount of work being done by tiny winged creatures.

The good news is that home gardeners can make a real difference. Planting the right flowers, herbs, shrubs, and perennials gives bees a healthy, reliable food source. And as a bonus, a pollinator garden is one of the prettiest things you can put in your yard.

Here’s everything you need to know to get started.

Why Variety Matters in a Bee-Friendly Garden

Our busy, buzzy friends seem like a true bee habitat with a little variety in their diet!  

Bees are not picky, but they are smart. Research shows that bees visit gardens with ten or more different pollinator-friendly plant varieties far more frequently than gardens with just two or three. A diverse garden signals a reliable, nutritious food source. Think of it as setting a table with multiple courses rather than one dish.

Staggering your plantings so that something is always in bloom from early spring through fall also makes a big difference. Bees need food throughout the season, not just in June when everything seems to flower at once.

A quick tip: the Pollinator Partnership website (pollinator.org/guides) offers a free, zip-code-specific guide to the best pollinator plants for your region. It’s a fantastic resource and worth bookmarking.

Plants that Produce the Best Flowers for Bees

Herbs

Herbs are a double win — they’re useful in the kitchen and bees absolutely love them, especially once they begin to flower. If you tend to cut your herbs back before they bloom, consider letting a few go to flower at the end of the season. The bees will thank you!🐝

Perennials

Perennials are the backbone of a pollinator garden. Plant them once, and they come back year after year, giving bees a dependable food source they can count on. Many of these are also low-maintenance and drought-tolerant once established — a bonus for busy gardeners.

Annuals

Annuals bloom prolifically and fill in gaps between your perennials. They’re also great for containers on patios and porches, so even gardeners with limited ground space can support pollinators. Many are easy to grow from seed, which makes them an affordable option.

Shrubs

Shrubs add structure and height to a pollinator garden while also providing shelter. If you’re planning a new garden bed or looking to replace a non-productive shrub, consider one of these bee-friendly options.

The Most Important Thing to Know Before You Buy Plants

Neonicotinoids

Here is something that will make your head spin: you can plant every single flower on this list would still harm bees if those plants were treated with a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids before you brought them home from the nursery.

Neonicotinoids are systemic pesticides, meaning they are absorbed into every part of the plant — including the pollen and nectar that bees collect. More than 30 scientific studies have linked neonicotinoids to declining bee populations. The chemicals attack insects’ nervous systems, impairing bees’ ability to navigate, forage, and build healthy colonies.

The good news is that things have changed considerably since this post was first written in 2015. Consumer pressure worked. More than 140 companies — including both Home Depot and Lowe’s — have eliminated neonicotinoids from their supply chains. Home Depot now reports that 98% of its plant products are neonicotinoid-free, with the only exceptions being plants in states where neonicotinoid treatment is actually required by regulation to control invasive pests.

What’s the Government Doing About It?

At the legislative level, eleven states have now passed laws restricting residential neonicotinoid use, including California, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. New York went the furthest, passing the Birds and Bees Protection Act — the first law in the country to ban neonicotinoid-treated seeds for corn, soybean, and wheat production. Vermont followed with similarly sweeping protections. Here in North Carolina, House Bill 84 is currently working its way through the legislature and would limit neonicotinoid use to licensed applicators, farmers, and veterinarians.

At the federal level, the EPA has not banned these chemicals, and there is no indication that a nationwide ban is on the horizon. So the responsibility still falls on us as individual gardeners and consumers.

What About the Growers?

What about the major growers whose plants end up on garden center shelves? The picture is mixed, but there are some genuinely encouraging stories. Metrolina Greenhouses, based right here in North Carolina and one of the largest wholesale greenhouse operations on the East Coast, has completely eliminated neonicotinoids from its growing operation, replacing them with biological controls as part of a comprehensive integrated pest management program. They supply plants to Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Walmart across 19 states, so there’s a good chance that if you are on the East Coast, the plants you’re already buying from those stores are coming from a neonic-free source.

On the seed side, Bonnie Plants, Ferry-Morse, American Meadows, and Eden Brothers have all confirmed they do not use neonicotinoids in their production. Those are solid choices when you’re starting from seed or picking up vegetable transplants in spring.

Proven Winners is a more nuanced story. They have eliminated neonicotinoids from their young plant production, but they supply young plants to thousands of independent finishing growers who grow them to retail size, and Proven Winners does not regulate what those finishing growers do. So, a Proven Winners plant on a garden center shelf may or may not have been treated after it left the Proven Winners facility. If you see a Proven Winners plant you want, check the pot for the name of the finishing nursery and ask about their practices.

And sadly, some growers have been more resistant to change.

Here’s What You Can Do

Ask! Even when big-box stores have cleaned up their supply chains, asking staff whether a specific plant has been treated signals to retailers that this matters to their customers.

Buy from local nurseries and native plant sales. Small local nurseries, Master Gardener plant sales, and native plant societies remain your best bet for plants you can ask about directly.

Grow from seed. Starting from seed using a confirmed neonic-free source — American Meadows, Ferry-Morse, Eden Brothers, or Bonnie transplants — removes the uncertainty entirely.

The bottom line hasn’t changed: educate yourself, ask questions, and when in doubt, choose the safer option. The bees are counting on us.

 

I’m not a scientist, just a concerned human and gardener who wants to plant as many healthy plants and flowers for bees as possible. And I doubt that neonicotinoids are the only harmful chemical out there. There may be folks who claim that banning the neonicotinoids is a knee-jerk reaction, and there may be a study out there that disproves the whole link.

But until we know, why wouldn’t we err on the side of caution? As in all things in life, educate yourself and know what you are consuming (or, in this case, offering to the bees for consumption). And remember, we can all help save the bees.

Bookmark this post or pin the following image to refer back to this list of great flowers for bees in the future.

Thanks for making my day by SHARING!!