Calendula

Value to bees

Nectar

Moderate

Pollen

High

As a honey crop

Feeds the colony but rarely yields a surplus

Which bees, and why

A flat open landing platform with nothing hidden, worked by honey bees, bumblebees, small solitary bees and hoverflies. Its late flowering means it is sometimes the only thing a bee finds on a mild November day.

Completely open — accessible to the shortest-tongued insects and to non-bee visitors alike.

Worth knowing

Moderate nectar and good pollen, delivered across an exceptionally long season including the shoulders of the year when little else is open. Its value is timing rather than volume.

Flowering

In flower

May to December (northern hemisphere)

Genuinely this long in a mild climate. Autumn-sown plants flower from spring; spring-sown ones carry on into early winter, and in a mild year they overlap.

When nectar flows

Nectar and pollen are fully exposed on the central disc, and available on any day mild enough for an insect to fly — which is what makes the late-season flowering worth something.

Year-to-year variation

Very reliable. Not a honey crop.

Growing it

Conditions

Full sun to light shade, any reasonable soil. Undemanding to the point of being difficult to fail with.

Size

30-60 cm.

Native range

Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, though it is unknown in a truly wild state.

Suits

Containers and window boxes, Small gardens, Large gardens, Meadow or wildflower area

• Choose single-flowered forms. Many garden calendulas are fully double and have converted the pollen-bearing disc florets into petals, which removes the forage entirely.
• Sow direct in spring, and again in early autumn for the earliest spring flowers.
• Self-seeds prolifically. Once you have grown it once you have it permanently, which most gardeners regard as a benefit.
• Deadhead to keep it flowering, but leave the last flush to seed.

What it looks like

A soft-stemmed sticky-leaved annual with bright orange or yellow daisy flowers, the central disc surrounded by a single ring of ray florets, followed by distinctive curved seeds.