10 Best plants to attract pollinating insects to your garden this summer

The activity of pollinating insects like bees, butterflies, hoverflies and moths is crucial for the health of ecosystems and the successful reproduction of many flowering plants, fruits, and vegetables.

As part of Insect Week, gardening professionals have offered ten of their recommendations to make your garden friendly to wildlife and insects. These ten nectar-rich plants were highlighted in a recent report by The Independent, offering valuable sources of nutrition to pollinators in the summer season, while some of them will provide food for insects well into autumn.

Coneflowers are highly popular both among gardeners and pollinating insects like bees, butterflies and other insects.

The flowers provide ample opportunities for feeding as they are quite big and easy to reach. Furthermore, coneflowers bloom for a considerable period of time, thus serving as a reliable source of nutrients when many other flowering plants start fading. Besides, their beautiful pink-purple flowers will add bright colors to your border plantings with little maintenance required.

Nepeta (Catmint)

Nepeta, or catmint. The reason behind this recommendation is that nepeta flowers for an extremely long period of time attracting a lot of pollinating insects like bees.

Nepeta loves sunny areas and produces masses of pretty lavender-blue flowers that provide bees with valuable amounts of nectar. This hardy plant is a great border filler as well as an effective ground cover.

Scabious

This plant has been widely used for wildlife gardens because of its nectar-rich flowers that bloom for a very long period of time. The Independent reports that scabious flowers attract plenty of pollinators like bees, butterflies and hoverflies.

Scabious provides them with nectar for feeding due to the characteristic pincushion-like shape of their flowers which makes it easy for insects to drink nectar. In addition, scabious adds elegance and elegance to garden flower beds.

Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea)

Foxglove is one of the most recognizable plants of the English countryside. However, apart from being one of the most attractive garden plants, it also attracts many pollinating insects like bumblebees.

Foxgloves produce rich flower spikes with lots of tubular blooms in them which make it possible for larger bees to reach the nectar inside easily. Not only will these lovely plants attract bumblebees, they will also give you height, drama and structure.

Verbena bonariensis

Verbena bonariensis is another plant recommended to those who are interested in cultivating a garden friendly to pollinators. It features tall, slender stems with bunches of pretty purple flowers at the top of them.

These flowers produce lots of nectar which will keep bees, butterflies and hoverflies busy all through the summer season. Verbena is rather decorative because of its airy look, making it suitable to combine with other flowers.

Plume thistle (Cirsium rivulare 'Atropurpureum')

This less popular but no less valuable plant has attracted the attention of wildlife gardening specialists and received special recognition from The Independent. As it flowers profusely with rich red-purple blossoms, it attracts plenty of pollinating insects like bees and butterflies thus making a great contribution into conservation.

Furthermore, plume thistle adds a rich splash of colour to garden borders being also resistant to drought conditions.

Ice Plant (Hylotelephium spectabile)

It is worth mentioning that the ice plant becomes valuable to pollinators towards the end of the season. This is because the ice plant produces large clusters of pink flowers that attract bees and butterflies in large numbers. Besides, its leaves are quite fleshy which means that it will thrive in any dry location in your garden.

Aster (Michaelmas Daisy)

Another useful plant recommended by wildlife gardeners to cultivate is aster. It becomes important during the later parts of the season, as asters flower from late summer to early autumn, thus continuing to produce nectar when it stops blooming with most other flowering plants. Being able to attract bees, butterflies, and hoverflies, it plays an important role in preparing insects for winter.

Honeysuckle (Lonicera)

As a climbing plant, honeysuckle is capable of climbing walls, fences and pergolas thus creating shelters for wildlife and providing insects with food at the same time.

Apart from being quite pretty, honeysuckle is known to be pollinator-friendly, as its sweet-scented tubular flowers attract bees in the daytime and moths in the evening. Thus, honeysuckle serves as the best plant for your pergola.

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

Apart from providing a lot of food for pollinating insects, yarrow is rather resilient and can grow in almost any type of soil conditions. Thus, it makes this plant very convenient for use in gardens. Moreover, it serves as a reliable source of nectar, attracting a wide array of insects, including bees, butterflies, hoverflies, and predatory insects.