Terry Coombs wrote:
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 .

seeds?


some asters. russian sage.


There are some asters around , growing wild .

the white smaller ones are earlier bloomers
here than the later purple ones. the purple
asters are about the latest flowers we'll see
along the roads.


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...

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 .

depends upon the plant, but many seem to do better
when planted later in the summer and into the fall,
but some need disturbed soil, others need some action
to get the seeds down in far enough, others need a
bit of fire or heat, others need the cold and frozen
time that winter can provide. patience and watching
areas you've put things to see what sprouts when...

sometimes adding some potted plants will help get
a patch established.

oh, besides buckwheat, radish works well as a nursery
crop as it also grows quickly. some varieties of flax
are very nice to look at too, but it might be too late
to plant them down there (golden flax seeds i like more
than the black seeded types). radish blooms the second
season (as also the purple top turnips, beets and chards).


songbird