Plants
Bees and pollinators need 3 things to thrive – food, shelter and water. With some planning around the seasons, we can help our vital pollinators by growing flowers from spring to winter, and not just when the sun shines.
Use our handy guide to pollinator-friendly plants – including trees, veg, herbs and flowers – to offer a valuable source of nectar and pollen through the year.
Experiment with different shaped flowers – the tongues of bees, hover flies, moths and other pollinators vary in size – see what grows well in your garden.
​Spring / Summer
Key management suggestions •
Ensure that plentiful flower rich forage habitat is available until late September. This can be achieved through a cutting or grazing rotation.
• Cut traditionally managed hay meadows after mid-July; if possible rotate a late cut to provide forage into September.
• Leave wide uncut strips at the edge of fields to provide late forage (rotate strip each year). • Cease summer grazing, or, adopt light rotational grazing throughout the year.
• Rotate cutting of hedges, ditches and banks - ensures some areas are cut late.
• Establish new wildflower grasslands or pollen and nectar margins.
• Leave tussocky grass and scrubby areas for nesting, undisturbed between March and October.
• Protect and manage brownfield habitats by rotational clearance of vegetation to maintain mosaic with open flowery areas.
Winter / Fall
You can help winter-active bumblebees by providing them with nectar. Winter-flowering plants for your site as pictured are a constant winter long food source.
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You can also help bees in winter by:
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creating leaf and twig piles for shelter​
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growing ivy for cover and late nectar
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building a bee hotel where solitary bees
can lay their eggs in spring and summer.
leaving your compost heap untouched and avoiding digging soil until spring (queen bumblebees may be hibernating).
