11 MUST Grow Pollinator Garden Plants 🐝

In this video, I planted a pollinator strip at the edge of my front yard edible garden as an attractant and have already noticed increased activity in the veggie garden.

00:00 - Intro
00:26 - Sponsor
01:13 - General Intro
02:15 - Blue Lobelia
02:50 - Echinacea
03:33 - Heliotrope
04:19 - Milkweed
05:17 - Alyssum
05:41 - Agastache
06:29 - Yarrow
06:53 - Daisy
07:23 - Pentas
08:02 - Salvia
08:32 - Delphinium
09:28 - Outro

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[jamieflint]

You crack me up jumping out from behind the raised bed, and then lying down in the garden to go over each plant 😂 Love it!

[puddsmax]

The absolute best pollinator plants are the Wildflowers that are native to YOUR area. Some of these aren't native to the entirety of the US but it's certainly a great list for your area. :)

[vlong]

Milkweed was my gateway plant at the beginning of COVID! I got really into supporting Monarchs and moved to indoor gardening. Thank you for mentioning the difference between native and tropical! It matters <3

[diamondmoonwolf]

Color is very important. I’ve been gardening for 9 years now. And threw research and experience, blue and purple colors is what will attract bees.

Reds and oranges will attract your hummingbirds and butterflies because bees will take all the pollen and nectar, but they can not see red colors so bees and hummingbirds have adapted to understand this, and will aim for red flowers.

So happy you mentioned milkweed. What’s super important to note, is that you should 100% plant butterfly host plants, because they will actually attract more butterflies than any flowers would ever.

One of my top favorites that seems to attract butterflies, bees, and moths (at night) is Cleome/spiderflowers

[meganmackenzie]

This is my first year growing Purple Tomatillos, and I almost don't care if I get a harvest because it's so pleasing to come near it as the whole bushed-out plant buzzes with bumblebees and other pollinators. It's a song of life with all the flowers and the pollinators it's brought in.

[TheCorporalCreampuff]

As a new beekeeper, this is super helpful!
Other plants I have recorded as great for pollinators are:
-Anise Hyssop
-Dogsbane/catsbane
-lavenders (of course)
-snapdragons
-thyme+oregano+rosemary
-queen annes lace/wild carrot/parsnip (if you get to one before the bees do, you can actually see the nectar glistening on the flowers)
-Borage/Vipers Bugloss (makes the best honey in my opinion)
-lemon trees
-wattle trees

Note:
I am from NZ, so hopefully I haven't listed any unsuitable for anyone; I did try to do non nz natives

[NorthWoodsRestoration]

Finally!!!! I think planting pollinator plants are super important especially nowadays.

[jaedyncall]

You were already one of my favorite YouTubers, but I love that you delivered those flowers to subscribers. That was seriously so sweet of you.

[nellgwyn]

I really enjoyed the video. But I want to say it would be important to mention that the choice of which flowers to plant really depends on your country and area. Local plants are always the better choice, because many animals specialise on the plants native to their region. A lot of people import and many exotic plants look really nice, but are rather invasive in the wrong area and don't feed all those specialised pollinators (a lot of wild bees do in fact only visit a small list of plants, some only visit a single type, so you can have beautiful exotic flowers in your garden that end up feeding nothing and potentially spread and replace the local flora that the pollinators actually rely on.)

So, I really enjoyed the video, but I hope everyone knows that instead of taking this as recommendations, depending on where they live it is better treated as inspiration to find beautiful local plants that offer the same benefits :) Lovely though and I have never heard of milkweed before, living in northern Europe, so now I'm gonna go read up on monarch butterflies and then hummingbirds, because oh my god I wish we had those here <3

[andresibarra]

I live in jalisco (mexico) as such i do have tropical milkweed since it is my native variety, i didnt know they sold it in the USA, i thought everyone would just sell their local variety.

[christinawong]

Great video on the importance of flowers. I used to think they were a waste of space vs edibles.

[Myshka]

"It's rare to find plants hardy to zone 3."
*Cries in equivalent to USDA zone 3a*
For real though, I want to recommend bee balm as a great pollinator plant. There are many species native to many parts North America and not only to the bees love them, but they smell amazing too!

[PrincessTS]

for my garden i buy large bags of seeds to grow wildflowers for the pollinators there is a special mix just for them

[dianabolla]

Bees love lavender. Smells good and drought tolerant too :)

[TheFragrantBunch]

I was like you and only grew vegetables, but once I started planting flowers, I couldn't stop. Now I have more flowers than veggies lol

[KoolaideIsBallin]

African Blue Basil attracts Bee's, Butterflies, Hornets or Wasp, and Flies in my garden. I love it.

[eugsmiley]

5:00 California banned the commercial sale of Tropical Milkweed. In Ventura County they are doing two plant giveaways of Narrow-leaf Milkweed. I am not sure if they are doing this in other parts of the state.

[nenemaria-cornfieldsgarden]

Some great ideas there Kevin! I find that herbs are often one of the best pollinator magnets. Sage in particular puts on an immense show and seems to draw in all the bees. Anything from the mint family, thyme, rosemary, oregano, chives etc. We get to eat and so do the bugs :)

[Seleste]

This is right on time! I haven't seen any pollinators in my vegetable garden and I've been trying to figure out how attract more.

[themusenextdoor]

Definitely agree on the salvia and agastache for perennials! As far as annuals go, I've been getting a lot of visitors to my sunflowers, bachelor buttons, and buckwheat.