Shrubby cinquefoil
A low tough shrub covered in small open buttercup-like flowers from May until the frosts, and one of the longest-flowering hardy shrubs there is. It offers completely open flowers accessible to the smallest bees, which makes it more useful than its municipal-planting reputation suggests.
Value to bees
- Nectar
- Moderate
- Pollen
- High
- As a honey crop
- Not a honey source
- Which bees, and why
- Completely open saucer flowers with fully exposed anthers, workable by the smallest solitary bees as well as by bumblebees. Its length of season is its real value.
Fully open saucer flowers with exposed nectaries and anthers — accessible to essentially every bee.
- Worth knowing
- A moderate nectar source and a generous pollen source across an unusually long season.
Flowering
- In flower
- May to October (northern hemisphere)
An exceptionally long season, from late spring until the first hard frost.
Growing it
- Conditions
- Full sun on almost any well-drained soil, and extremely hardy and tolerant of poor ground and exposure.
- Size
- 60-120 cm tall and as wide.
- Native range
- Northern Europe, Asia and North America, on limestone, damp grassland and mountain. Rare as a British native.
- Suits
- Small gardens, Large gardens, Hedgerow, Containers and window boxes
- Prune out a third of the oldest stems each spring to keep it flowering rather than merely thickening.
- Extremely tough and tolerant of cold, wind and poor soil.
- Yellow-flowered forms are the most vigorous; pink and orange cultivars fade badly in strong sun.
What it looks like
A low twiggy deciduous shrub with small divided grey-green leaves, smothered in small five-petalled saucer-shaped flowers in yellow, white, orange or pink.
Sources
- Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland — Bloomsbury (2015) · Field guide
- HoneyHQ editorial synthesis — HEKNO Ltd · HoneyHQ synthesis
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.
- 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?