Lesser calamint
A low aromatic perennial that produces a haze of tiny pale lilac flowers from July right through to the first frosts, and one of the longest-flowering bee plants available. Its season alone makes it valuable; the fact that it is drought-proof and smells of mint is a bonus.
Value to bees
- Nectar
- Very high
- Pollen
- Moderate
- As a honey crop
- Not a honey source
- Which bees, and why
- Tiny shallow two-lipped flowers accessible to small solitary bees as well as bumblebees, and produced in such quantity that the plant hums. It carries the border well into autumn when little else is left.
Very small two-lipped flowers with a short tube, accessible to small bees that deeper Lamiaceae exclude.
- Worth knowing
- An outstanding nectar source with one of the longest useful seasons of any garden perennial.
Flowering
- In flower
- July to November (northern hemisphere)
An exceptionally long season, running from midsummer to the first hard frost.
Growing it
- Conditions
- Full sun with sharp drainage on poor dry soil. It is thoroughly drought-tolerant and dislikes rich wet ground.
- Size
- 30-50 cm tall and as wide.
- Native range
- Southern and central Europe and the Mediterranean, on dry stony ground and scrub.
- Suits
- Small gardens, Containers and window boxes, Large gardens, Walls and fences
- One of the best plants for a hot dry spot, gravel garden or wall top.
- Cut back in late winter rather than autumn; the dead stems shelter invertebrates and protect the crown.
- Self-seeds gently into gravel and paving cracks, which is generally welcome.
What it looks like
A low bushy perennial with small grey-green leaves smelling strongly of mint, smothered in a cloud of tiny pale lilac two-lipped flowers.
Sources
- Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland — Bloomsbury (2015) · Field guide
- Assessment Report on Pollinators, Pollination and Food Production — Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) (2016) · Systematic review Link
How sources are selected and weighted is set out in the sources and evidence policy.
Guides covering this plant
- How to make a garden genuinely useful to beesMost bee-friendly advice covers flowers in June, which is the one thing bees are least short of. The gaps are at the ends of the year — and half the problem is not flowers at all.
- The best flowers for beesHerbaceous flowers rather than trees and shrubs, chosen for output and length of season. Most of them are things you can grow in a border or a container.
- Summer plants for beesSummer looks abundant and contains a real gap. The weeks between the spring blossom finishing and high summer starting are thinner than most gardens realise, and colonies are at peak population when it happens.
- Bee plants for a small gardenA small garden cannot do everything, so it should do the things large gardens usually skip: the winter and early spring gaps, and nesting habitat. Both take almost no space.
- Bee plants for a balconyBees will find a balcony several floors up, and containers can be genuinely productive. The constraints are watering, wind and depth, and the plants that handle all three are mostly Mediterranean herbs.
- A Mediterranean bee gardenThe one climate where the bee-friendly planting and the drought-tolerant planting are the same list. The Mediterranean gap is not winter — it is the dead of summer, and the plants that solve it are mostly herbs.
- Long-flowering plants for beesA plant in flower for five months does the work of three plants in flower for six weeks, and removes the timing problem that defeats most bee planting. These are the ones that keep going.
Tools for planning planting
- Flowering calendar
What should I plant so that something is always in flower for bees?
- Bee-friendly garden planner
What should I plant in the space I actually have?
- Plant recommendation tool
Which plant fills this specific gap?