Winter-flowering cherry

Value to bees

Nectar

Moderate

Pollen

Moderate

As a honey crop

Not a honey source

Which bees, and why

Buff-tailed bumblebees increasingly maintain winter-active colonies in mild urban areas of southern Britain and northern Europe, and winter-flowering garden plants are what makes that possible. Honey bees also fly on mild winter days and will work it.

Worth knowing

Modest in volume and disproportionately valuable in timing — this is a plant whose worth is entirely about when it flowers.

Flowering

In flower

November to March (northern hemisphere)

Flowers in repeated flushes through the winter rather than in one burst, opening whenever conditions turn mild.

Growing it

Conditions

Sun or light shade on any reasonable well-drained soil. Fully hardy and undemanding.

Size

6-8 m tall with a spreading crown.

Native range

A garden hybrid of Japanese origin, not found in the wild.

Suits

Small gardens, Large gardens

• One of the most useful winter-flowering trees for a small garden.
• Semi-double forms still offer accessible pollen and nectar, unlike fully double cherries which offer nothing.
• Avoid fully double ornamental cherries entirely if bees are the point — the stamens have been bred into petals.

What it looks like

A small spreading tree with fine twiggy growth carrying small semi-double white or pale pink flowers in scattered flushes through the winter months, rather than all at once.