Creating a bee pasture with seeds in your own garden is not only good for the environment, but also looks beautiful. Here you can find out the advantages of the flower meadow and which seeds are best suited for a bee pasture.
A flower meadow for bees of all kinds is not only good for the environment: it offers you colorful flowers in a small area with minimal maintenance. There is also a seasonally changing spectacle - from the trouser bee to the blue tit you can observe all sorts of different beneficial insects. You can also help our native insects and pick a bouquet or two. We will show you the advantages and how you can easily transform your garden into a bee paradise.
What is a bee pasture?
The term bee pasture has two meanings:
- A plant that gives bees a lot of food in the form of pollen or nectar is called bee pasture in the language of beekeepers.
- An area on which a particularly large number of bee-friendly plants grow is colloquially called bee pasture.
On bee-friendly planted areas, bees (Apiformes) of different families, genera and species find food all year round and maybe also one or the other nesting or resting place. Bee pastures are left alone most of the year, allowing nature to take care of itself on this small piece of ground. Even in small gardens, a small area can be planted with knee-high bee forage plants.
Tip: Examples of particularly good bee pastures - in the classic sense of the word - are bee-friendly shrubs and stone fruits. But also bee-friendly flowers, bee-friendly perennials or bee-friendly herbs are important sources of food for bees.
Advantages of a bee pasture
What is the benefit of creating a bee pasture? The planting or sowing of bee nutritive shrubs has positive effects not only for the bees. You yourself can appreciate the great ornamental value of bee pasturesbenefit. Because pollen and nectar are found in flowers - and these are usually brightly colored and often smell wonderful. They possess these traits to attract the attention of bees and other pollinators. In addition, there is hardly anything easier to care for than natural areas full of flowering perennials and summer flowers. Once created, they are cut down with a string mower at most once a year and watered or fertilized a little if necessary.
Tip: Cutting down the faded or withered parts of the plant is also purely optional and serves your own visual needs. If you leave the area completely to itself, this benefits native insects even more, as hollow stems are retained as nesting sites or building material. Garden birds are also happy about old seed heads and dead stalks.
These are the advantages of creating a bee pasture:
- Low maintenance
- Enables exciting nature observations for young and old
- High ornamental value all year round
- Habitat for beneficial insects that can protect your garden plants from pests
- Attracts birds and other insects as well as bees
Buy bee pasture: the right seeds
It doesn't have to be a whole flowering hedge or a bee tree. With the help of a little soil, water and patience, an area with annual and perennial flowering plants for bees and insects can be created with ingeniously composed seed mixtures. With a bit of luck, the annual plants will also seed again, so that the bee pasture will remain attractive to you and various pollinators for many years. But how do you recognize a high-quality mixture for bee pasture?
Seeds for your bee pasture should…
- Contain seeds from many different plants, covering diverse flower shapes and flowering times,
- contain high-quality, germinable seeds,
- include instructions on correct application and maintenance,
- be developed with experts, for example with beekeepers,
- Provide you with further information on the protection and promotion of bees.
So that you can enjoy your high-quality bee pasture for a long time, we at Plantura have taken these quality features to heart and developed our Plantura bee pasture. We were supported by beekeepers who told us about the pollen and nectar value,flowering time calendar and bee-friendliness. Overall, we have selected undemanding plants that thrive without much effort. Cornflower (Centaurea cyanus), Bee Friend (Phacelia tanacetifolia) and Marigold (Calendula officinalis), but also Adonis roses (Adonis vernalis) will give you a lot of friends even without a green thumb. If you provide them with some flower fertiliser, such as Plantura organic flower fertiliser, and water, they will bloom magnificently.
Creating a bee pasture: How to do it
Creating a bee pasture is not particularly difficult. Between April and July you can succeed in investing with the following 4 steps:
- Choose the right location: Choose an open area (whether in partial shade or in the sun). Our Plantura bee pasture is sufficient for up to 20 m2 area. Of course you can also sow the bee pasture in buckets or balcony boxes.
- Prepare the area: Existing vegetation that cannot be integrated into the flower meadow will be removed. This gives the new seeds room to develop. This is especially true for lawns. This should be removed in sods or milled. Existing bee-friendly plants can of course be retained.
If the soil is very sandy and nutrient-poor, we recommend working in some Plantura organic flower fertilizer and the peat-free Plantura organic potting soil. The surface is then raked smooth with a rake. - Sowing: Shake the seed pack well to mix the different seeds. Our Plantura bee pasture contains some coconut material, which makes it even easier to spread. Now spread the seed over the area. The seeds are then covered thinly with soil or raked in flat, pressed and then watered extensively.
- Care: Regular watering is necessary until the seed emerges and during long dry periods. In the first year after installation, the area should be walked on as little as possible. Once a year you can fertilize the area with a flower fertilizer such as our Plantura organic flower fertilizer to promote rich flowering.
Our Plantura bee pasture germinates after about 2 to 4 weeks under normal conditions. You can admire the first flowers after about 8 to 10 weeks. Because the seeds contained are annuals and perennials, the composition of your bee meadow will change over the years: Some seed plants will sow, perennials will grow larger and there may be more to comeadd one or the other wild plant.
By the way: Most bees prefer to stay in warm, sunny places. Because suitable forage plants have co-evolved with the respective pollinators, most bee pastures therefore prefer sunny locations.
Bee pasture in winter
When the year draws to a close, the bee pasture slowly withers. Now it's not time to cut loose, but rather leave the stalks and old seed heads over the winter. These serve as winter quarters for many insects and small mammals. In addition, some annual plants only release their seeds after winter. So that the seed is not lost, it is better to never cut down the insect willow or only cut it down in spring. In this way, you also give hibernators the chance to seed themselves in the spring. When cutting down in the spring, it is worth shaking the clippings vigorously to free any seeds that may still be inside.
Want to welcome bees and insects throughout your garden? Here you will find many other exciting articles on the subject: How about nesting aids for wild bees? Incidentally, in addition to the Plantura bee pasture, you will also find seeds for a Plantura butterfly club and a colorful mixture in our shop, which we rightly call a Plantura beneficial insect magnet. All of our seed mixtures can also be spread together to create a particularly wild meadow.