A border that earns its keep

Most suburban borders are planted for one glorious fortnight in July, then left to sulk for the rest of the year. Bees cannot work with that. A queen bumblebee emerging in March needs food straight away, and a solitary bee provisioning nest cells in September needs it just as badly. The gap in the middle — that flat patch in late June when the spring bulbs have gone over and the dahlias have not yet started — is where most gardens quietly fail.

The good news is that a border three or four metres long, planted with a bit of thought, can feed a surprising number of bees from February through to November. You do not need a meadow, a wildflower strip or an acre of space. You need the right plants, in the right quantities, arranged so a bee can actually find them.

Plant in drifts, not dots

Bees forage by sight and scent, and they are far more conservative than you might expect. A single lavender marooned in the middle of bare soil will be visited, but grudgingly. Six lavenders together, forming a block of colour and scent a metre across, will be worked over all day long.

Aim for drifts: groups of three, five or seven of the same plant, repeated around the border rather than dotted about one by one.

• Plant in odd-numbered groups, roughly 30–40cm apart for most perennials, so they knit into a single mass within two seasons.
• Repeat the same plant in two or three places along the border so bees can move between patches without leaving the garden.
• Keep the drifts generous. One drift a metre or more wide is worth far more than three thin, scattered clumps.
• Let some plants self-seed. Foxgloves, borage and calendula will do the drifting for you if you leave the seed heads standing.

Single and open beats frilly and double

The single most useful rule in bee-friendly planting: choose single, open flowers. Double flowers — the ones bred with petal upon petal, like so many bedding geraniums and busy Lizzies — have largely lost their stamens and nectaries along the way. There is often simply nothing for a bee to collect, however pretty they look to us.

Different bees have different tongue lengths, so a mix of flower shapes helps everyone:

• Long-tongued bumblebees: foxgloves, comfrey, lungwort, honeysuckle, deadnettle.
• Short-tongued bumblebees and honeybees: lavender, catmint, hardy geraniums, alliums, sedum, asters.
• Solitary bees: oregano, thyme, marjoram, verbena, and single dahlias or echinacea with a clear landing pad.

Most culinary herbs qualify. If you are choosing between a frilly pelargonium and a pot of oregano, the oregano wins every time.

What to plant, month by month

If your border currently has only one good month in it, work from this list and stretch the season at both ends.

• February to April: crocus, hellebores, pulmonaria, wallflowers, winter honeysuckle, willow.
• May to June: alliums, foxgloves, hardy geraniums (Geranium macrorrhizum is superb early on), catmint, comfrey, borage.
• July to August: lavender, oregano and marjoram, Salvia nemorosa 'Caradonna', single dahlias, scabious, echinacea.
• September to November: sedum, asters, Verbena bonariensis, and hardy geraniums such as 'Rozanne', which flowers on until the first real frost.

Leave the seed heads on the sedums and asters over winter. They feed the birds and look superb rimed with frost.

Housekeeping that keeps the border working

A bee-friendly border is a slightly relaxed border, but it is not an untidy one. A few simple habits make a real difference.

• Avoid insecticides altogether, including sprays for aphids and bug clear products. Even a single application can knock back a colony for weeks.
• Leave hollow stems and seed heads standing until late March. Solitary bees and other insects overwinter inside them.
• Keep a patch of open, undisturbed soil at the front of the border. Many solitary bees nest in bare ground rather than in fancy bee hotels.
• Water thoroughly in the first summer after planting, then leave the plants to fend for themselves. Drought-stressed flowers produce far less nectar.
• Deadhead lightly rather than obsessively. Cutting everything back in August removes the very flowers that late bees depend on.

Do all of this and your border becomes more than a pretty view from the kitchen window. It becomes a reliable, season-long larder — and you will notice the hum of it long before you notice anything else.