Cotoneaster

Value to bees

Nectar

Very high

Pollen

High

As a honey crop

Minor honey crop — a surplus only locally or occasionally

Which bees, and why

Honey bees dominate and work it obsessively — an urban colony with a mature cotoneaster in range will strip it. Bumblebees and solitary bees use it heavily too. The flowers barely open, but the nectar is shallow and freely reached.

Small cup-shaped flowers with shallow accessible nectar, suited to short-tongued bees.

Worth knowing

Very high nectar from a plant that grows anywhere, in any soil, in sun or shade, with no attention at all. Per unit of gardening effort it is close to unbeatable.

Flowering

In flower

May to June (northern hemisphere)

Three to four weeks, at the point in early summer when spring blossom has finished and midsummer has not begun.

When nectar flows

Copious nectar in flowers so small they are easy to overlook entirely. The sound of a cotoneaster in flower is the usual way people notice it.

Year-to-year variation

Extremely reliable. Not a commercial honey crop, though a substantial urban forage source.

Growing it

Conditions

Sun or shade, any soil, drought-tolerant, and effectively unkillable.

Size

From 30 cm ground-cover to 6 m; the wall-trained herringbone form is the most familiar.

Native range

Asia, chiefly the Himalaya and China, with a couple of European species.

Suits

Walls and fences, Small gardens, Large gardens, Hedgerow, Containers and window boxes

• Prune after flowering rather than before, or the forage and the berries go with the clippings.
• The wall-trained Cotoneaster horizontalis is the most common form and among the best — it will grow on a shaded north wall where almost nothing else useful will.
• Check the species before planting outside Europe.

What it looks like

Deciduous or evergreen shrubs ranging from flat ground-cover to small trees, with small oval leaves, tiny cup-shaped pink-white flowers borne in profusion, and heavy crops of red berries.