songbird wrote:
Terry Coombs wrote:
...
I've been trying to get borage (and other stuff) started here ,
supposed to bloom later than most of the stuff here . I need
something that blooms into the summer heat , we have a dearth of
nectar sources after about mid-July , and often no nectar flow in
the fall . Bees gotta eat , and feeding them sugar syrup gets
expensive .

if you don't have meadowland/open areas i'm not
sure how well most flowering plants i can think of
will do.


I have power line easements about 60-80 ft wide thru the woods , they get
pretty good sun .

bee balm and the related bergamot are later
blooming.


I planted some bee balm , never came up - maybe next spring .

some asters. russian sage.


There are some asters around , growing wild .

if you start it now buckwheat should be blooming
in 4 - 6 weeks (needs sunlight). for next year's
blooming i would mix in with that some white clover,
red clover, alfafa, and birdsfoot trefoil. then you
could mow this field in patches to keep some of it
from flowering earlier and then it could be left after
the first or second cut to bloom later. it will take
a few years for the alfalfa and trefoil to really get
established.

for the immediate and shorter term buckwheat is a
good stopgap plant and a good nursery plant for the
clovers, trefoil and alfalfa...


songbird


I'll have to check out the buckwheat , they've been saying on
beesource.com that some varieties don't produce much nectar . I did scatter
some sweet clover seed , didn't come up . Neither did the borage , bee balm
, penstemon ,or the hollyhocks - I may have waited too late . I have
reserved some of the seeds I bought , planned on scattering them this fall
in hopes they'd germinate next spring . I'd love to crowd some of the
grasses out with other stuff that's more bee-friendly .

--
Snag