Start With What Bees Actually Need

A wildflower garden is one of the kindest things you can do for British bees. Foragers need three things from your plot: nectar for energy, pollen for protein, and somewhere safe to nest and shelter. Get those three right and the garden will fill with sound and movement from March through to October. The good news is that you do not need an acre of meadow. A sunny strip of lawn left to grow, with selfheal and white clover flowering in it, will feed more bees than a border of bright bedding plants. The meadow approach simply does the same job with a wider, wilder range of flowers.

Choose Open, Single Flowers — Not Double Blooms

The single most useful rule is to choose open, single-petalled flowers. Years of breeding have given us double dahlias, pom-pom asters and ruffled roses whose stamens and nectaries have been replaced by extra petals. They look magnificent, but many offer bees nothing at all. Single forms of the same plants are generous, easy to reach and often longer flowering.

Grow a mix, because bees have different tongue lengths. Short-tongued species such as many bumblebees and solitary mining bees suit shallow, daisy-like flowers, while long-tongued bumbles can work deeper trumpets and clover.

• Native meadow perennials: oxeye daisy, field scabious, common knapweed, betony, yarrow, viper's bugloss and purple loosestrife
• Clovers and trefoils: red clover, white clover and bird's-foot trefoil, all excellent and drought-tolerant
• Hard-working annuals: borage, calendula, cornflower, cosmos, corn marigold and single dahlias
• Early forage: lungwort, crocus, hellebore, willow, apple and hawthorn blossom
• Late forage: marjoram, teasel, ice plant, asters, single dahlias and ivy left to flower

Plan for a Long Flowering Season

A wildflower meadow tends to peak hard in June and July, then go quiet just when bees are building up stores for winter. Plan deliberately for the gaps, rather than hoping the meadow will carry on by itself.

• March to May: lungwort, crocus, snake's head fritillary, flowering currant and fruit blossom
• June to July: oxeye daisy, knapweed, clover, scabious and foxglove
• August to October: marjoram, teasel, ice plant, asters, borage and single dahlias

Sow a few annuals in gaps and in a sunny border near the house, and resist cutting the whole meadow in June. If you must tidy, take one half early and leave the rest until late July, then cut and remove the clippings.

Provide Shallow Water

Bees need water, and they cannot drink from a pond with steep sides. On hot days foragers collect water to cool the nest and dilute their stores, and a deep dish is a drowning hazard. Sink a shallow saucer or plant tray at soil level, fill it with pebbles or small stones so bees can land safely, and top it up every day through July and August. A bird bath with a gently sloping shallow edge does the same job. Keep it out of the fiercest midday sun so the water stays cooler, and empty and refill it regularly rather than letting it stagnate.

Leave Room for Nesting and Shelter

Most British bees are solitary, and the majority nest in the ground. They need bare, undisturbed, well-drained soil — a south-facing bank, a patch of light earth among the grass, or the edge of a path. Bumblebees use old mouse holes, tussocks of long grass, compost heaps and cavities under sheds.

• Leave a patch of bare soil un-dug and unmulched, ideally on a sunny slope
• Keep a few tussocks of long grass standing over winter, cutting them back in spring rather than autumn
• Stack logs, prunings and dead stems in a quiet corner
• Leave hollow plant stems standing through winter — they may already be occupied
• Postpone the big tidy-up until late spring, once queens have emerged

Manage the Meadow Gently

Wildflowers struggle in rich, well-fed soil, where grass and nettles win. If your ground is fertile, either strip the top layer, sow into a poorer strip beside a hedge, or grow your meadow in a raised bed filled with a lean, sandy mix. Yellow rattle is the traditional ally here: it weakens grass and lets flowers through, and it is easy to sow in autumn.

Match your seed to the soil — clay, chalk, loam and damp ground each suit different mixes — and avoid pesticides and weedkillers entirely, since even a small spray can wipe out the insects you have encouraged. Cut once in late summer, always removing the clippings, and again in autumn if growth is strong. A mosaic of cut and uncut patches suits bees best, leaving some flowers standing while others are trimmed. Watch what arrives, and let the garden tell you what is working.