May 15th, 2017 - Plant buying

Having bought mail order plants from rosybee.com nursery and been impressed with their quality,  I contacted Rosi Rollings and went to visit her at her nursery near Wantage in Oxfordshire.

Rosi is so interested in providing plants for bees that she has planted a research bed with square metres of each plant she wants to test.  She then does a daily snapshot counting the number of bees on each type of plant.

Rosi’s rosybee nursery

Rosi’s research bed

She raises plants from seed which she then sells in trays of 6 or 10, each plants being garden ready and about the size of a 7cm pot. Together they will attract many of the 255 species of bee there are in this country.

Seedlings being potted on

A pack of 6 and a box just delivered given a good soaking

Six plants in a tray

Her website at rosybee.com offers collections including bee plants for shade which are particularly useful for a town garden.

Here are some names you might recognise:-

Helenium autumnale, echium vulgare, Helenium Sahin’s Early Flowerer, hyssop, wild oreganum, teucrium, nepeta, scabious, foxgloves, sedum, knautia, cranesbill and pulmonaria.

Here is my newly planted sunny border which will grow and spread out to provide a bee buffet.  Thankyou rosybee!