7 Great Pollinator Plants and 1 That Has To Go
🌸 My Top 7 Pollinator Plants & The One That Didn’t Make the Cut! 🐝
In today’s video, I’m sharing my top seven pollinator plants that have turned my garden into a buzzing, fluttering haven for bees, butterflies, and more! These plants are true all-stars when it comes to bringing in the pollinators.
Here are my top picks based on this season in my Zone 6A SE Michigan garden:
Calamintha nepeta – This little plant is an absolute pollinator magnet!
Millenium Allium – Beautiful blooms and a favorite among bees.
Verbena bonariensis – Tall, graceful, and always swarming with butterflies.
Monarda fistulosa (Wild Bergamot) – A native the bees love
Polygonum orientale ‘Cerise Pearls’ – Attracts all kinds of visitors.
Sweet Joe Pye Weed – Tall, majestic, and beloved by all the pollinators.
Gomphrena ‘QIS Pink’ — Beautiful dried flowers that attract moths and bees in my garden.
But not every plant makes the grade! Unfortunately, coreopsis just didn’t perform well in my garden when it came to attracting pollinators. I’m sharing why this popular plant is getting the boot from my garden next season.
🌼 Let me know in the comments which pollinator plants are your favorites or if you’ve had a similar experience with coreopsis. Happy gardening! 🌷
#PollinatorGarden #TopPollinatorPlants #GardenTips #Bees #Butterflies #Gardening #NativePlants #GardenInspiration #CalaminthaNepeta #VerbenaBonariensis #MonardaFistulosa #JoePyeWeed #Coreopsis #FlowerGarden
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📩 sue@gardenmoxie.com
I’ve tried to sow Kiss me over the garden gate without success here in UK. Your display is lovely.
What type of irrigation do you use?
Just watched this video and wanted to say that Lanceleaf Coreopsis is a goldfinch magnet. Mine plants are usually covered with goldfinches balancing on the flowers and eating the seeds. The Coreopsis you have in your video is not Lanceleaf and that could be the difference. Just my two cents for what it’s worth.
Bees love my blue Veronica, Agastache rugosa, and Pentemon digitalis Mystica.
I enjoyed this video. I am gathering information to re-work the pollinator portion of the community garden our local Master Gardeners maintain. Your video provided some great information and ideas we can use. Thank you so much!
Enjoyed your video immensely!
If you are wanting to see some really cool native wasps – run, don’t walk, and grow some Spotted Bee Balm! I started mine from seed and they bloomed the first year. Beautiful!!! Another recent fave of mine is Hairy Mountain Mint. Add me to the list – I’m also a Anise Hyssop fan. Early and late Figwort, Partridge Pea and Korean Hyssop are great as well.
My seed orders came in today – and I’m sooooo anxious to start growing Gomphrena (mixed), Tall Verbena, Catmint (Grandview), and Calamintha (Marvelette Blue).
I’m in Northern Indiana by the way.
Can you do a video with suggestions for removing and keeping from coming back my arch enemy, IVY? Every year it begins its long crawl, especially along my fence line with the neighbor. It climbs everything and anything it climbs dies eventually. It even can slowly pull down my wire fence. :o(
Bees and butterflies love sedum blossoms. But it is a late season bloomer. But once it starts blooming, it stays till the first frost.
How about adding ironweed? Very tall, purple flowers.
Two of the best pollinator flowers in my S.E. Massachusetts yard have been Purple Giant Hyssop (Agastache scrophulariifolia) and Late Figwort (Scrophularia marilandica.) Bees, and hummingbirds use the nectar, and goldfinches love the seed of the hyssop. Wasps, honeybees, and hummingbirds enjoy the nectar of the figwort. The best pollinator woody plants have been Winterberry, (Ilex verticillatta), Oakleaf Hydrangea, ‘Winter King,’ Hawthorn, and a fragrant, shade-tolerant vine called Decumaria barbara. Other favorites have been Summersweet, Tall and New York Ironweed, and New England and Calico Aster.
We had awesome attraction to medusa allium. We see a lot of activity on our amaranths and holly hocks. Nicely done episode!
Sedum! I’m not sure the variety as I have had it for so long. Maybe 20 to 24" tall, clump forming, very architectural and a perennial to boot. It has really started to be in full bloom just this past week and will turn a deeper rose as it ages. Bees & wasps love it.
thank you! im gonna Move my millennium allium to the front border from the back
I have a tardiva paniculata hydrangea which is unlike the monster blossoming ones we see at the garden centers. There are as many as 50 bees on them at a time. The blossoms remind me of the lace cap hydrangeas even though it has panicle flowers. Quite a find in the bargain bin of Flowerland in West Michigan-only $10. It loves the sun and is 7/8′ tall. It doesn’t attract Japanese beetles like the oakleaf hydrangeas in my area. Thanks for sharing your successes and questionable plants, Sue. Your suggestions are very helpful. Happy gardening!🌸🐝
I observed the same thing that you did regarding tickseed—no pollinators. I got a lot of pollinator activity on anise hyssop, blanket flower and turtlehead this year. I am looking forward to planting mountain mint and cardinal flower this fall for next year’s garden.
My ticketed attract very small bees, a crazy amount
I love this video. With so many plants to choose from, it’s a blessing to receive the insight of yours and others observations about which plants pollinators appear to most prefer.
On the note of coreopsis, I suppose it’s worth mentioning that even if they’re not seeing much pollinator traffic, they still serve as host plants for certain types of moth and beetle larvae. Lance leaf coreopsis seems to love the hillside where I do most of my growing and it does see steady pollinator traffic throughout the season, even if only because it is so prolific.
I planted Monarda punctata for the first time this last year. It bloomed right away and brought in a lot of pollinators i wasnt familiar with. One thing i like about Monarda fistulosa is the way it looks in winter.
I feel also compelled to mention borage. As aggressive as it is with self-seeding, this year in Ontario zone 5b I had many bumblebees visiting the flowers throughout October from a July/August sowing, when it seemed all other flowers were done for the season. I also grow cerinthe major which is less aggressive about self sowing (for me) and sees lots of interest from bumblebees. They make a cute sound as they visit the flowers which I quite enjoy.
Last mention goes to a number of plants in the family apiaceae. Any overwintered parsnips or parsley see a ton of traffic from hoverflies and wasps. Bronze fennel/florence fennel deserve a mention too, as they’re host plants for black swallowtails, though i think they’ll use most plants so long as they’re apiaceae.
Hi Sue. I’m in Northern Idaho Zone 6a, but i look for zone 5 plants due to odd years with -16° occasionally. Were in deer country too. We have a lot of the same plants. A friend who has bee hives noticed that pollinators weren’t attracted to my Gaura. I did lose them to an unusually cold winter that took out half of my lavender and roses too. Only the grafted roses though. What about a Spirea, Russian Sage or Weigela for that spot you’ll have open? I l9ve your videos.
Forgot to also say, I have these amazing lemon queen perennial sunflowers. They get about 6+ feet tall, about 3’ wide, larger each year. I think I now have about 22 (big garden 😝). In the fall, they are covered with bumbles. I found that honeybees love the goldenrod and fall asters, as do bumbles. Often, bumbles prefer different flowers to honeys. Evening primrose is a magnet for the goldfinches in fall when the seeds are ripe. I’m finding the most joy in letting wild parts of the yard grow to see what delights await. God has already done the sowing for me.
I had a lot of luck with zinnias and cosmos!!
Celosia! But beware of reseeding.
The first 2 plants are my favorite plants.
My daughter lives in Minnesota and send me a picture yesterday of six monarchs butterflies on one Blazing star plant. Will be adding blazing star to my beds next year
Love seeing your pollinator garden and hearing about what has and hasn’t worked for you. I would recommend aster lady in black, heliotropium aborescens, any single petal dahlias, cupheas and salvias (waverly, chiapensis have been good for me). These plants attract pollinators in droves in my garden. I’m located in zone 10b (San Francisco Bay Area) for context.
I love Blue Boa Agastache for the pollinator garden. I agree the Coreopsis are not a good pollinator plant. The deer, especially the young ones, will sample any plants, but usually don’t eat any more after their first bite. Cone flowers are nice in the pollinator garden too and the Goldfinches really like them.
Garden looks great Sue! The coreopsis you have are all nativars, and the pollinators have a hard time with them. The straight species coreopsis Lancelota or, lance leaf coreopsis, is much better. It is solid yellow and I think the issue with the others is the markings and the may not offer nectar or pollen. The other plants I would recommend are, straight species anise hyssop or giant blue hyssop which is taller and could be use to replace the monarch clump. It’s definitely a favourite. I didn’t see any asters or goldenrod, and I’m guessing it’s because they haven’t come up yet or maybe you haven’t added them to the garden. Anyway, after calamentha nepeta and anise hyssop, my number one native pollinator plant is stiff goldenrod. Solidago rigida. Bees, wasps, butterflies, moths….everybody loves it. It comes into bloom this time of year, a week ago this year, and from the time the sun comes up, until it sets, it’s covered with pollinators. It grows about five feet tall and may need some support, because the flower heads can be quite heavy, but well worth the effort. Glad to see you discovered calamintha nepeta, but I would add for people to make sure they are getting calamintha nepeta ssp (subspecies) nepeta, as they are starting to make cultivars of it, and they are duds, when it come to attracting pollinators. Asters as well, are very important, especially this time of year, when food is in short supply. New England aster is the work horse, but there are so many varieties, (same with goldenrods) for lots of different locations. Some like more moisture or sun, than others. There are even ones that do well in shade. I could go on and on about all the awesome native (I’m in the same zone as you) plants that are available lol. I’ll leave it at that. If you are still on Instagram, I have a page for my garden, if you want to see the plants I mentioned. @nativepollinatorpatch
Sea Holly, veronicastrum, heliopsis and hyssop are always a buzz in my garden. They thrive in my zone three, Rocky Mountain climate. I get a lot of hummingbird moths and bumble bees.
Caryopteris is always covered in bees. It’s really more shrub like and with the blue flowers in August and the pretty foliage is dark on one side and grey on the other. What is a true disappointment is the butterfly bush. I have yet to see one butterfly on it.
Liatris, catmint and sedum. I want to get a button bush.
I love this topic. I’m often watching to see which plants are bee magnets (though there are many types of bees/wasps). I’ve found in early spring that the bumbles prefer ajuga with its lovely blue flowers. It creeps everywhere and puts on a great spring flower show. The bumbles also love self-heal, which has a similar blue flower and is medicinal. My favourite would be catmint (not catnip, though it’s good later in the season) due to its very long bloom time. All the flowers on these plants are very similar. I’ve tried calamintha but mine is still very small so not much action (year 2). It might be borderline hardy for me (zone 5-6, Canada, which I think is equivalent to 4-5 in the US). Thanks for the video.
No idea on how native it is or anything else, but bronze leaf fennel has been great at attracting beneficials into my garden. Some things like brachanid wasps lay eggs in catapillers on my brassicas or tomato hornworms, but I believe it is species specific to those. It gets about 6 feet tall, has a feathery fluffy texture, and of course an interesting bronze color. The flowers remind me of the shape of dill or carrot flowers, but are a bright sort of goldenrod yellow which looks nice against the foliage. It smells of licorice (which for me is offputting) and is supposed to deter some things from vegetable beds, but attracts a lot of others. It has been perennial for me here in northern Indiana, but doesnt produce a bulb like normal fennel (which is great because I’m not a fan 😂). Oh, and I have it in both mostly shade and full sun areas. Will probably move it out of my back bed this year if I can, my asparagus is loving the shady life so well Im starting more and the texture will be the same so a bit much for that bed to have both. Not sure I can move it, but if so will put in an even shadier spot behind my shed for a pop of color from the kitchen window peaking up over the black raspberries.
I love this garden!!! I totally agree with you on calamintha plant this plant is amazing I planted it on the back of roses it gives that pop of color it looks like babybreath even though has nothing to do with love it
Yes, to Blue Fortune, but also Angelica Gigas is an amazing pollinator. A biannual, so I make sure to grow from seed each year. Thanks for video, I would alos like to try the native monarda.
I try to incorporate pollen producing plants as well as nectar. Most plants touted as pollinator plants are just for nectaring only and often at the neglect of pollen consuming natives and lifecycle completion. I find that in my area, coreopsis attracts adorable hover flies and native bees and not your more charismatic pollinators.
I have been diversifying to be more inclusive of pollen producers, nectar, and host plants. The sea change of insect diversity has been so fun to watch. I see more birds and lizards (I am in Texas) too, as there are more insects for them to feed on.
I’ve come to really love the hover flies. They are so darling, but very hard to see because they are often quite small and very fast.
Lambs ear is covered in my gardens.
🙏❤️😘
The plant need to grow and need more than one or two days ago
Love your practical plant review. Persicaria ‘Firetail’ is a plant that I think is underused here in North America. You see it a lot in Europe. It blooms from June to frost and the bees are all over it. The deer may munch on it but it always ends up blooming. The flower is an attractive airy wand and a great colour similar to polygonum oriental except it is upright. Also great as a cut flower. The plant is tall, the Japanese beetles do like it but it doesn’t affect the flowers. Give it a try.
A good replacement for the monarda could be lacy phacelia. Similar structure and flower color, but it’s often used as a cover crop, and doesn’t have powdery mildew issues in my experience. And bees LOVE it. Also borage does great in my garden and self seeds readily. A good replacement for the coreopsis could be blanket flower. Very similar coloring, but grows lower, and not floppy. Also cosmos do a good job of bringing smaller pollinators for me. And another vote for the agastache.
Asters for the fall – successful and important
When my sedum bloom the pollinators cover it . Even hummingbird moths❤
A beautiful and informative video.
Velvet Queen sunflowers (the red one) were absolutely crawling with bees for me last year.
And this year, it was chive flowers and Italian oregano flowers.
The chives bloomed in spring and were covered in bees, and big bumble bees would fall asleep on them – that was so cute to see!
The Italian oregano has blue green leaves, and gorgeous purple flowers in late summer so far.
I agree that coreopsis has been a floppy, disappointing pollinator magnet. I will keep it but not plant more. I suggest you consider asters and goldenrod if you want amazing pollinator action. Live in a hot, dry climate and they do very well in full, baking sun. If I cut the one third of the aster stem back in early July, it prevents them from flopping over and the asters will form a huge bush absolutely filled with flowers that pollinators love. Added plus, asters and goldenrod are keystone species!
Sorry, I should say I am in zone 5, in Ontario, Canada
Annual salvias. They bloom for months here in NC zone 7b and are covered in pollinators all day
Hi Sue, Thank you for sharing your great advice with us! You are always thoughtful! Cheers, Albert
Nice plants 👍
Asters, goldenrods, snakeroot, Russian sage, feverfew, alyssum, sedum were pollinator magnets.
Maybe add a patch of Liatris?