Bee plants for a small garden

Choose by season, not by variety

The instinct in a small garden is to fit in as many different plants as possible. That produces a great many one-month performers and a garden that is empty for half the year. The better strategy is to pick a small number of very long-flowering plants and use the remaining space on the seasons nobody else covers.

The two gaps to prioritise

Winter and early spring. Almost every neighbouring garden will have something in flower in July and almost none will have anything in January. A single mahonia and a patch of crocus in a small garden are worth more than another summer perennial.

• Mahonia — flowers November to March, tolerates shade, and one plant is enough.
• Winter honeysuckle or winter clematis on a wall — vertical space costs nothing.
• Crocus — plant a hundred bulbs in grass or in a pot; they take no summer space.
• Hellebore — flowers in the depths of winter in dry shade.
• Ivy on a fence or wall — the single best autumn plant, and entirely vertical.

Nesting takes less space than flowers

This is where a small garden can genuinely compete. Ground-nesting bees need a patch of bare, sunny, undisturbed soil — a square foot at the base of a wall is enough. Cavity nesters need hollow stems and dead wood, which is a bundle of cut stems tied to a fence. Neither takes bed space and almost nobody provides them.

1. 1Leave a patch of bare soilSouth-facing, unmulched, undisturbed. It will look untidy and it is the most valuable thing in the garden.
2. 2Keep some stems standingCut perennials in late winter, and leave a few hollow stems up all year.
3. 3Add fine bee hotel tubes2-4 mm and 6-8 mm. Most commercial hotels only offer the large sizes.
4. 4Leave a small log pileIn shade, under a shrub. Nesting and overwintering habitat.
5. 5Do not pave or fabric everythingSealed ground supports no ground-nesting bees at all.

Vertical and container growing

Walls and fences are unused space. Ivy, winter clematis, honeysuckle and a wall-trained pear all flower without taking bed area. In containers, marjoram, thyme, calamint, chives, lavender and crocus all perform well, and a single large pot of mixed herbs left to flower does a genuine amount of work.