A garden question
Pollinator Favorites
Curated abundance with a touch of whimsy
A garden can be beautiful and useful at the same time. Nearly everything on this list was chosen first because it is a good plant — the fact that it also feeds something is what makes it worth planting three of instead of one.
Quick tips
-
Cover the season
March and October are the hungriest months and the least planted for.
-
Single flowers feed
Doubles are mostly modified stamens — little pollen, and often no way in.
-
Chewed leaves mean it worked
A host plant is supposed to get eaten.
How to think about it
Five things make a garden work for pollinators, and none of them require giving up on how it looks.
Nectar
The fuel. Buddleia, asters, salvias, thyme in flower. The more nectar-rich plants in one area, the less energy an insect burns finding them.
Flower shape
Different visitors need different doors. Flat, open flowers — asters, single roses, thyme — let short-tongued bees feed. Long tubes — pineapple sage, salvia — are built for hummingbirds and butterflies. Plant both shapes.
Double flowers are usually a dead end. All those extra petals are modified stamens, so there is little pollen and often no way in. A single rose feeds; a densely doubled one is decoration.
Bloom timing
Cover the season. Early thyme, midsummer asclepias and buddleia, late asters and pineapple sage. The shoulders — March and October — are the hungriest times and the least planted for.
Sun exposure
Most nectar plants want full sun, and insects are more active in warm, sunny, sheltered spots. A pollinator bed on the sunny side of a fence, out of the wind, will be visibly busier than the same plants in the open.
Host plants, not just nectar
This is the piece most gardens skip. Nectar feeds adult butterflies; host plants are where caterpillars eat and grow. Monarchs need milkweed — asclepias — and nothing else will do.
A host plant is supposed to look chewed. If you plant asclepias and find the leaves stripped, that is not damage. That is the whole point, and it means it worked.
Starting small
You do not need a meadow. Three asclepias, two asters and a thyme at the front of an existing sunny bed will bring in more life within one season than most people expect — and none of it looks like a project.
One more thing worth more than any plant list: skip the insecticide in the beds where these are growing. A pollinator garden treated with a broad-spectrum spray is just an expensive trap.
What we have
Asclepias 'Red Butterfly'
$12
Asclepias curassavica
- Light
- full sun
- Water
- Low to moderate
- Size
- 24–36 in
- Bloom
- Summer into fall
Milkweed — a monarch host plant, meaning caterpillars actually grow up on it, not just visit.
Good to know Host plants are supposed to get chewed. Holes in the leaves mean it is working.
Asclepias 'Apollo Orange'
$12
Asclepias tuberosa
- Light
- full sun
- Water
- Low — poor soil suits it
- Size
- 18–24 in
- Bloom
- Summer
Our native butterfly weed. Deep taproot, long-lived, and it wants nothing from you.
Aster 'Believer Purple'
$8
Symphyotrichum
- Light
- full sun
- Water
- Moderate
- Size
- 18–24 in
- Bloom
- Late summer into fall
Late nectar, which is the hardest thing to find and the most valuable — this is fuel for the monarch migration.
Pineapple Sage
$6
Salvia elegans
- Light
- full sun
- Water
- Moderate
- Size
- 3–4 ft
- Bloom
- Scarlet spikes, late summer
Tubular red flowers arriving exactly when hummingbirds are fattening up to leave.
Pink Chintz Thyme
$6
Thymus serpyllum
- Light
- full sun
- Water
- Dry side
- Size
- 2–4 in, spreading
- Bloom
- Soft pink, late spring
Let a creeping thyme flower and it disappears under honeybees. One of the best early bee plants we grow.
Buddleia 'Hot Raspberry'
Buddleja
- Light
- full sun
- Water
- Low once established
- Size
- Compact — 2–3 ft
- Bloom
- Summer into fall
Butterfly bush, and it earns the name. Nectar-rich, long-blooming, and this one stays small enough for a bed.
Good to know Nectar for adults, but not a host plant — pair it with asclepias so caterpillars have somewhere to grow.
Rose 'Pink Drift'
$28
Rosa
- Light
- full sun
- Water
- Deep, weekly
- Size
- 18 in × 2.5 ft
- Bloom
- Spring to frost
Single, open-faced flowers with pollen a bee can actually reach — most double roses offer nothing.
Blueberry 'Premier'
$18
Vaccinium ashei
- Light
- full sun
- Water
- Even moisture
- Size
- 6–10 ft
- Bloom
- Spring
Bumblebees are the best blueberry pollinators, and they show up for it in numbers. You both get fed.
A little field guide to feeding the garden's visitors.