If you want bees in your garden ...

[Jez]

Originally Posted by beebeautiful

Point is, the parts that are still alive are always swarming with bees and other life so I want to make sure I replace it with something equally attractive to them.

any suggestions??

Why not replace with more of what you already have! Do you know what you have, if not could you take a photo and upload for an ID?

Cheers~ Jez

[beebeautiful]

Originally Posted by Jez

Why not replace with more of what you already have! Do you know what you have, if not could you take a photo and upload for an ID?

Cheers~ Jez

Not much of it is in a good state really.

The problem is with it being a new house its only got a sprinkling of soil over builders rubble (they were planted before we moved in).
So they just haven't rooted well. The dead ones just lift strait out the soil, no effort, and the others haven't rooted much better.
Think I need to dig in some more top soil for anything to have a chance.

No idea what it is, will try and upload a picture for ID.
Have one solitary tree in the back garden, no idea what that is either so I'll take a pic for ID as well

[Jez]

Top soil and some organic matter and if you can fish out any of the rubble the better!

[Monkey Orchid]

Originally Posted by beebeautiful

I'll look up the plants already mention, but any particular suggestions for a bush that would be suitable to make a small hedge line, only about 2.5 feet tall?

Point is, the parts that are still alive are always swarming with bees and other life so I want to make sure I replace it with something equally attractive to them.

any suggestions??

Hebe is great for bees, butterflies and other insects, and as an added plus is as tough as old boots and grows pretty much anywhere (its native country is New Zealand). There are lots of different varieties with varying growth habits (height/spread), foliage (green, variegated, bronze), flower shape and colour (white, purple, pink etc). They are easy to propagate from cuttings and from seed, and grow well in any soil type.

We planted a hebe hedge in our front garden, can't recall the variety but we bought about ten plants in 9-inch pots at around £3.50 each and they've all grown well: hedge was 2 feet high within 18 months and is now waist height. Easy plant to maintain, you just clip it if you don't want it to get too big. I don't think we did anything other than sprinkle a bit of 6X fertiliser when we planted them, watered the new plants in and then left them to it (with a woodchip mulch to suppress weed growth). They have lots of white flowers for months at a time which the insects seem to love.

We also had a dwarf hebe (about 8 inches high) which used to grow by our pond in the back garden: a few years ago we moved it to a flowerbed and it is now 3 feet tall and 4 feet wide, and shows no signs of returning to its former dwarf habit! They seem indestructible. Our cat used to love lying in the middle of this hebe bush, but it always springs back from being squashed.