SOS for Honeybees: Spring Time Flowers

Even during these uncertain times, you can still get out into your gardens and support the NFWI’s SOS for Honeybees campaign by making your garden a bee-autiful pollinator haven!

Bees have lost much of their natural habitat in the past 60 years, including 97% of wildflower-rich meadows. They continue to be under attack from pesticides, intensive farming and climate change. Creating pollinator-friendly spaces can help to replace and restore lost habitats and will help to give Britain’s pollinator population a helping hand.

Many of you may find it difficult to source gardening equipment at the moment, but if you can, now is the perfect time. In response to customer demand, many supermarkets have expanded their gardening range, and many garden centres offer online deliveries.

Creating a pollinator-friendly garden will not only help the bees - it may help you too.  Whilst this is no panacea for effective mental health treatment, many psychological studies have found that daily contact with nature is linked to less stress and better mood. According to "Friends of the Earth", this may be because we as people share the bees’ need for varied, natural green spaces and the essentials that these places provide, such as clean air and water.

Inspired? Take a look below at some recommendations for some springtime plants.

Springtime plants

As it is spring, the NFWI recommends planting:

Pieris japonica

Pieris japonica like full sun or partial shade, in flower beds, borders and even courtyard gardens.

Cowslip

Cowslip like a sheltered position in the sun or partial shade. Try growing in a container or in rock gardens. They are also good for borders.

Common comfrey

Common comfreys like moist soil in sun or in partial shade. They can spread easily, so do site them carefully.

Please take a look at our SOS for Honeybee resources for more inspiration, including additional gardening tips, and bee-friendly recipe cards.

Help us create a virtual WI nature garden!

When you have taken action to help spruce up your garden for our pollinator population, why don’t you take a photograph of your garden with a short description of the pollinator-friendly plants in your garden, who you are and which WI you are from.
We will feature a selection of these on the WI social media channels.

Written by the NFWI Public Affairs team