Grape hyacinth

Value to bees

Nectar

High

Pollen

Moderate

As a honey crop

Feeds the colony but rarely yields a surplus

Which bees, and why

Worked hard by honey bees, which can reach into the small urn-shaped bells, and by bumblebee queens. A drift of muscari in April is usually the busiest thing in a spring garden after the fruit blossom.

Small urn-shaped bells with nectar at the base, within reach of a honey bee's tongue.

Worth knowing

Good nectar in the spring gap, from a plant that costs almost nothing and requires no maintenance.

Flowering

In flower

March to May (northern hemisphere)

Four to six weeks in mid spring, filling the gap between the early bulbs and the first blossom.

When nectar flows

Good nectar for the size of the flower, and many flowers per spike so a bee works one plant for some time.

Year-to-year variation

Extremely dependable, and it increases every year without attention.

Growing it

Conditions

Sun or part shade, any drained soil. It is close to impossible to kill.

Size

15-25 cm.

Native range

Southeastern Europe and Turkey; widely naturalised.

Suits

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

• Plant in generous drifts in autumn. It is cheap enough to buy by the hundred and it multiplies rapidly.
• The leaves appear in autumn and look untidy all winter — site it where that does not matter.
• It spreads enthusiastically by bulb and by seed. Welcome in grass and under shrubs, occasionally a nuisance in a tidy border.

What it looks like

Narrow floppy grassy leaves and a dense conical spike of tiny urn-shaped deep blue flowers with a white rim, resembling an inverted bunch of grapes.