How to get your garden buzzing
I love bees - I love their happy yellow stripes! I love the buzzing sound they make - it lets me know that they're around and helping my garden grow... And most of all, I love their bum dance! Seriously - if you get your garden bee ready, bees will do a special bum dance to signal to their friends to come on over! Now if that's not an awesome reason to get our gardens buzzing, I don't know what is...
Game time!
TRUE FACT / FALSE FACT
Buzz in if you know the answer (see what I did there...)
“The buzzing sound of a bee is actually the sound their wings make as they flap 11,400 times per minute...”
TRUE FACT! Mind. Blown....
Costa, scrapboy and I dressed as one of our faves - BEES!
Fun fact
Let's learn some more things about these amazing insects that we love! The more we know about them, the more we can protect them!
1. Bees take the pollen and nectar from flowering plants and carry it to other plants that need it; including our vegetables! Without bees, it's much harder to grow the food in our gardens!
2. Did you know that one-third of ALL the world's food relies on bees for pollination? One third! That means we need bees for the food that we love!
3. There are around 20,00 types of bees! And here in Australia, we have 1,700 species of native bees alone! In our gardens, we want native bees as well as honey bees. Native bees aren't as social as other bees, and they don't make honey, but they sure are important for our ecosystems and our food! I'm always trying to attract native bees to my garden.
3 ways to help our bees
1. The main story when it comes to bees is DIVERSITY
We want different types of bees to come into our garden, so we need different types of flowers! One easy clue here is COLOUR!
Plant flowers that are all different colours. One trickier tip? Some bees get their pollen & nectar from teeny tiny flowers, while other bees like eating from flowers that are more open. So plant a whole diverse range! Easy to get food = well fed bees!
Flowers like these rock:
Bottlebrush
Grevillea
Abelia
Native Sarsparilla
Wattle varieties (Acacia)
Bees will also love non-native flowers like marigold, geranium and sunflowers. No wonder I love bees - sunflowers are my favourite flower!
2. Plant veggies and herbs that bees love, like:
Mint
Parsley
Thyme
Lavender
Rosemary
Yarrow
Comfrey
Caspicum
Brassicas
Zucchini
Pumpkin
Squash
Here I am with a pumpkin that my bee friends helped me grow!
3. Have lovely fresh water around
You can create little drinking spots for your bees using little containers. Be sure to also pop in a few rocks and stones for the bees to perch on - bees aren't known for their swimming!
So there you have it - three of my best tips to help you get your garden buzzing!
I also LOVE building bee hotels! But that’s a whole other blog… One bonus tip? Bees don't like nasty chemicals! So keeping your garden free of them will definitely seal the deal for getting your garden buzzing!
Stay grubby!
dirtgirl xx
