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Later they learned that only domesticated bees love them which pushes native bees who actually need the help further away.
Basically happened to us, just with butterflies.
I planted milkweed in the back yard for the Monarch butterflies which are native.
I don’t remember when I last saw a Monarch butterfly. It’s sad.
Replaced my lawn with clover … now it’s always green no matter the weather (even now under a foot of snow, it’s still leafy green) … and several times in the summer, the flowers bloom and the bees visit them. Over the years, I keep planting wild flowers around the edges of the lawn. Not much there but I keep expanding it every year.
For attracting native bumblebees in North America, I cannot recommend echinacea (Echinacea purpurea) enough, especially if you live in its native range (marked in green):
It’s not native in my region but I have it in my medicinal herb garden, and let me tell you I have never seen the native bumblebees go more gaagaa over a flower (the non-native honeybees, on the other hand, were generally uninterested). Echinacea would prefer some room, but I’ve successfully grown them in containers before (I’d recommend one plant per 5-10 gallon container). Unfortunately echinacea won’t bloom in its first year, but they’re worth the wait!
Medicinal herb garden! That’s so cool. What kind of stuff do you grow there, and what do you use it for? I don’t live in the US, so perhaps you’re able to grow quite different things than I would, but I can’t think of many things I could grow that would be medicinally useful
I am only just getting into medicinal gardening, but my impression thus far is that there are basically two kinds of plants in this category: “normal” garden plants that happen to have medicinal properties but are usually grown for other reasons (basically all herbs, like sage, parsley, lavender, etc, as well as plants often grown for ornamental purposes, like calendula and yarrow), and “unusual” garden plants that are rare in standard gardens and are typically grown specifically for their medicinal properties (such as stinging nettle, mugwort, ashwagandha, tulsi, arnica, etc).
You would be really surprised at how many plants have medicinal properties! Even plants like strawberry and raspberry: their leaves make great tea for easing menstrual symptoms. But like all medications you have to be careful about allergies, side effects, and drug interactions. For that reason, I’d highly recommend searching for a book or reputable website that goes into the topic at length (I’m just starting out so I don’t have any offhand to recommend, sorry). “Medicinal gardening” or “garden pharmacy” are two search terms to get you started.
All over the world, humans have been growing and foraging plants for their medicinal properties for thousands of years (in fact, even other animals have been observed intentionally seeking out medicinal plants to treat specific ailments!) so there is certain to be a local culture for medical plants in your area. Unfortunately with modern medicine a lot of this knowledge has been lost/forgotten, but it’s being unearthed and reexamined all the time (for example: urtication with stinging nettle for arthritis).
More info on plants for pollinators:
For bumblebees I’d also highly recommend lupine (make sure to track down a native variety, and don’t plant lupine in the eastern hemisphere where it’s highly invasive), followed by fireweed (native to most of the temperate northern hemisphere), although these both require a decent amount of space to grow properly. If you’re balcony gardening, bees of all kinds seem to enjoy many flowering herbs, such as mint and lavender, as well as many vegetables after they bolt, such as the brassica family, meaning you can easily grow plants for both your and their use!
Lastly, don’t forget that bees aren’t the only pollinators: flies, wasps, and beetles are all pollinators too! Attracting them to your garden may sound unappealing, but that’s only because some especially gross and ugly species give the whole group a bad rap. Most wasps are not aggressive, and many fly species are actually really cute and super fun to watch, such as bee mimics and hover flies. These pollinators tend to prefer large clumps of small flowers, such as yarrow, coriander (bolted cilantro), parsley, and carrot (again, lots of plants also edible for humans!) Attracting bees is great, but it was only once I started growing plants for these other pollinator types that I began to notice a true ecosystem forming, with spiders, dragonflies, and birds coming by to prey on the flies and wasps.
Just make sure the plants were grown without insecticides. Yes that happens a lot
