Top 10 Flowering Plants for Bees & Beneficials in My January Garden

As I wandered around my garden this evening, I noticed how certain plants were particularly attracting lots of honeybees, bumblebees, butterflies, hover flies, drone flies, dragon flies and other beneficial insects. I thought I'd share with you the top 10 most actively busy flowers in my garden right now, ranked in the order of activity seen. At the end is a list of other things that are also flowering in my garden this month, most of which are also very good for attracting beneficial insects; they just didn't have the obvious activity of the top 10 today.

1. Borage I planted several borage plants down the middle of my blueberry/strawberry patch, and they're just HUMMING with bees! This vigourous plant with lovely star-shaped blue flowers is said to make strawberries produce better, is beloved by the bees, and the flowers are edible. Annual that happily self-seeds.

2. Oregano - I use oregano a lot in cooking, and it's hardy and easy to grow. At this time of year, it sends up tall stems topped with lovely purple flowers. I've seen Monarch and Admiral butterflies, bumblebees and honeybees as well as drone flies frequenting them today. Creeping habit, easy to grow from pieces.

3. Phacelia Another plant with purply-blue flowers that bees adore, phacelia is very, very easy to grow. It readily self-seeds, and will grow all year round. It has ferny leaves, and unique flower heads. Once the plant has flowered, it dies off. Most of my current plants have finished, but a few slower ones are still in flower, and always covered in bees.

4. Buckwheat  - Last year I grew buckwheat as a cover crop and mulch; it self seeded and this year my popcorn patch is full of buckwheat. I was going to pull it all and lay it down as a mulch, but in looking closer I saw that the flowers were very popular with drone flies, hover flies, bees, dragon flies and native wasps, so I contented myself with thinning it a bit. Buckwheat is a useful green manure crop, growing from seed to flowering in as little as 4 weeks. The grain is gluten free. Frost-tender.

5. Nasturtiums - I have 4 different coloured nasturtiums in my garden - three are self-seeded trailing types from last year, in orange, yellow and apricot, and the fourth is called Empress of India, a vivid red-orange clumping type. All are very popular with the bees, especially bumblebees. Nasturtiums are good companion plants to a number of vegetables, and are edible. The flowers have a peppery taste, and really dress up a salad.

6. Birdsfoot trefoil - this one is actually a weed in my garden, but it's a useful one; a nitrogen fixing legume and soil improver. Bees love it!

7. Strawberries & Boysenberries - all berry flowers are attractive to honey bees and bumble bees; these two are the ones primarily flowering in my garden right now, along with Chilean Guavas and Blueberries. The raspberries and blackberries have mostly finished flowering for now.

8. Onion family - chives & leeks - the onion family plants produce large, pom-pom like flower heads. In my garden now chives have been blooming for a while, with their smaller purple flower heads, and the leeks are in full bloom. Bees and bumble bees are always busily working the flowers. Last year I let some of my spring onions flower too, and they were also very popular.

9. Miner's Lettuce - sometimes some of what seems to us to be the most nondescript flowers are among the most attractive to bees and beneficial insects! Such is the case with Miner's lettuce - a lovely, easy to grow wee plant which forms a clump of tender, tasty leaves, with tiny wee flowers on a stalk rising above the centre of the leaf. Bees seem to be very attracted to them!

10. Red & White Clovers - another legume and soil improver, clovers tend to spring up by themselves where the soil is low in nitrogen. I've got lots of them in the area where we spread lots of sawdust/horse manure last summer. In general, honey bees favour the white clovers, as their tongues are not long enough to reach into the deeper tubes of the red clovers. Bumble bees like both.

Also currently flowering in my garden:
Small quantities of lavender and rosemary (they are most prolific in winter and early spring - the bees LOVE them)
Geranimums
Impatiens
Lemon Verbena
White Alyssum (bees love this one too)
Roses
Peas & Beans
Eggplant
Zucchini, Squash and Pumpkins (great for bumblebees in particular)
Parsley, Dill and Silverbeet/chard - unshowy flowers, but very attractive to hoverflies, flower long horn beetles and other small beneficials.
Cucumbers, watermelons & melons
Cornflowers (pretty, edible, and so many colours!)
Pansies (also edible, pretty and wide in range)
Feijoa
Chamomile
Calendula (awesome for bees, ladybirds, edible, medicinal)
Marigolds - French and African (bees and ladybirds love them)
Corn Cockles
Dahlias (surprisingly easy to grow from seed, and you get a wide range of colours)
Sweet peas
Basil, NZ spinach
Zinnias
Coreopsis (red amulet)
Sanvitalia
Dandelion and it's look alikes
English daisies
Comfrey
and probably a few more I've forgotten!

The more variety available, the more attractive your garden will be to the pollinators and other beneficial insects, which do wonderful things for your garden.

Don't forget to provide them with water in the summer too - a shallow bowl filled with small stones and water will allow these small friends to land, drink, and safely depart.