How to plant a bee garden?

Whether you buy Air Force One or the full Melinda’s Bee Garden, you will receive a selection of plants that flower from early spring to late fall, in many colours and shapes. Bees and other beneficial pollinators love these plants. Here are some tips and trick on planting your bee garden:

All plants (9 or 18 plants in 3.5″ inch pots) are perennials in our region and are ready to be planted. The plants come in a tray and pots are numbered. We have arranged them by colour, season and height to ensure your bee garden gets enough sun and looks great at all times.

While the tray is obviously a rectangle with 3 rows of 6 plants each (Air Force One and Bee Reel is 3 x 3 plants each), your garden can take any shape and form. We use the trays to easily move the plants easily and also to give you an idea how to arrange them. The plants are sorted by height (tall, medium and short) and mixed in colours. We number the pots so it’s easier to keep track of them when planting.

Prepare your flower bed with some compost, worm castings and make sure the soil is loose and fluffy. Ideally you will never step in your flower bed which will help the soil to stay fluffy instead of compacting. I prefer to water the bed a bit before planting and then water in the plants after they are planted in place. Space the plants around 8 inches/20 cm apart and mulch with hay or wood chips to keep weeds down and reduce the need for watering. This is going to make your bee garden low maintenance.

For the first little while I would recommend watering the plant ever so often to help them establish. However, after a couple weeks or so start reducing the watering and wean them off. They are perennials and unless we have an extreme drought they will be fine on their own!

We do include some herbs in our bee garden as they are bee favourites. All plants are labeled so if you see anything that you like (mint maybe?) go ahead and harvest lightly. As long as there are some blooms for the pollinators to feed on, they don’t mind sharing!

Our bee gardens will be available this spring! For more details please click here.