Bees and butterflies are the most common pollinators that carry a huge responsibility of balancing out the ecosystem. Butterflies and bees carry out almost 80% of pollination and they never charge us for that. We can only pay a little bit by creating a pollinator-friendly garden. Today I am gonna share a list of beautiful plants that attract butterflies and bees. Make sure you have some of these in your garden.
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Plants That Attracts Butterflies and Bees
Butterflies and bees add natural fauna to your small isolated flower garden. They are beautiful and yes they serve as a carrier of life to many plants.
Do you Know Why butterflies and bees are important for your garden? These small creatures are the major pollinators. They help in the reproduction of plants with separate male and female flowers. Bees and butterflies both collect nectar from various flowers. In this process, some pollen grains stick to their body and travel to the next female flower.
The journey of pollen starts from the anther of a male flower to the stigma of a female flower. It results in successful pollination and then a fruit forms.
These helpful bugs increase the rate of pollination. Ultimately it results in higher fruit production.
In absence of these creatures, you may have to pollinate the flowers manually. This is not possible for large commercial farmers. Also, manual pollination is not possible for every type of flower.
If you want lots of fruits and veggies in your garden then you definitely need some extra help. Here are some plants that attract both bees and butterflies. You can choose some to grow in your garden.
Plants that attract bees
| 1. Mint | 2. Mullein |
| 3. borage | 4. Sage |
| 5. sunflower | 6. Gaillardia |
| 7. geranium | 8. Scullcap |
| 9. poppy | 10. Flax |
| 11. Rosemary | 12. Four ‘o’clock |
| 13. paintbrush | 14. cosmos |
| 15. Basil | 16. Banquet flower |
| 17. Allium | 18. joe-Pye weed |
| 19. Lavender | 20. Bee balm |
| 21. Bee plant | 22. Giant Hyssop |
| 23. Thyme | 24. verbena |
| 25. Goldenrod | 26. Wallflower |
| 27. Globe Thistle | 28. Wild rose |
| 29. Helianthus | 30. Hyssop |
| 31. Zinnia | 32. Aster |
Plants that attract Butterflies
| Alyssum | Dianthus |
| Butterfly bush | Fennel |
| Calendula | Hollyhock |
| Daylily | Liatris |
| Delphinium | Marigold |
| Musk mallow | Nasturtium |
| Oregano | Phlox |
| Purple coneflower | Queen Anne’s lace |
| Scabiosa | Shasta daisy |
| Stonecrop | Yarrow |
there are 100’s of other plants that attract butterflies and bees. I have listed just a few of them. If I missed some the please let me know, I’ll update the list whenever required.
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Aster
Aster is a very common ornamental plant. It produces very beautiful flowers mostly purple, pink, and white in color. It attracts almost all pollinators and yeah, humans cannot ignore it.
It’s a spring season flower.
Bee balm
Beebalm is a beautiful daisy-like flower in the mint family. It has purple, pink, and white tubular petals arranged in a circular pattern. Each flower has a long tubular extension that connects it with the main plant body. It is a bed flower and grows mostly in clusters. As the name suggests Beebalm attracts lots of bees and butterflies.
Cosmos
Small yellow and orange cosmos flowers look great in open landscapes. The plants are short in height and usually grow in clusters. A bunch of cosmos looks better than a single flower. It has a very mild scent which attracts many insects and pollinators.
Globe thistle
Globe thistle or Echinops ritro is a perennial flowering plant in the Aster family. The bushy plant develops large tubular spikes during mid-summer that bears the beautiful blue spherical flowers. These spikes can last up to 8 weeks. These plants are easy to grow and maintain. It attracts bees and butterflies during its flowering season.
Lavender
This beautiful purple flower is popular for its medicinal and cosmetic uses. Lavender is a well-known source of essential oil. It has a mildly sweet fragrance that attracts lots of bees and butterflies.
Goldenrod
Just as its name suggests, this beautiful golden yellow flower grows in a group on a single central tubular stem. The plant can have several branches loaded with lots of golden flowers. These flowers are common in cold northern regions. The goldenrod flower starts blooming in spring around mid-may to June. It attracts several tiny pollinators.
Sage
Sage is a common name in kitchen gardens. Most of us identify this plant as a fragrant herb. It is a popular herb for salad dressings. Do you know sage also helps your garden by attracting beautiful butterflies and bees? Sage flowers are not very useful for culinary use still its help us to get higher vegetable yields.
Verbena
Verbena is a beautiful small flowering plant. It has several color variants like Red, pink, white, yellow, blue, purple, and variegated. The plant is ideal for container gardening as it requires less space to grow.
The violet-blue scented flowers are very popular among gardeners. It also attracts a large number of pollinators including bees and beautiful butterflies.
Verbena plants can be grown as perennials with very little care and maintenance.
Zinnia
Zinnia is a beautiful and heat-resistant flower. There are many color varieties available to choose from. The most popular ones are Red, Purple, white, yellow, and Orange. Zinnia is an easy-to-grow plant and you can use it as a cut flower. It also helps your grade by attracting bees and butterflies for pollination.
Marigold
Marigolds of all types attract pollinators like bees and butterflies. It is a flowering plant with beautiful reddish-orange or yellow flowers. Marigold is usually grown for its beautiful flowers. This plant can repel some harmful bugs like mosquitoes and ticks. Also, it can indirectly help to increase the pollination rate of your garden plants.
Learn about How to grow and care for Marigolds?
Tube Rose
Tuberose is a beautiful fragrant white flower. It is a summer flower grown by bulb distribution. Tuberose is popular among cosmetic and fragrance manufacturers. It has a mild to strong sweet smell that attracts bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and lots of other common pollinators. Tuberose essence and extracts have high commercial demand in the perfume industry.
Read More about how to grow Tuberose?
Final Words
Do you know some more beautiful plants that attract bees and butterflies? Yes, then let us know. You can help others with your knowledge. Read share and keep gardening.