Native Wildflowers That Bring Pollinators to Your Garden
If you want bees and butterflies in the garden then the easiest thing you can do is plant what they already recognise, and around here that means natives. They are built for this soil and this rainfall, so they ask a lot less of you than an imported flower will, and the insects turn up on their own without any encouragement from me. These are ten worth a spot.
Everlasting daisy
Xerochrysum bracteatum, and the papery blooms come in yellow and pink and white. It handles heat without sulking and it keeps producing nectar right through the hot months, which is exactly when the insects need it most.
Billy buttons
Craspedia, and the round yellow drumstick flowers look like something a child drew. Full sun, not much water, and the bees find them straight away.
Kangaroo grass
Themeda triandra gives a wildflower bed the structure it otherwise lacks, and the seed heads bring in the seed eating birds. The feathery plumes also stop a native bed looking like a patch of weeds, which is a real problem with wildflower planting.
Sturt's desert pea
Swainsona formosa, and the red and black flowers stop people in the street. It wants dry, gritty, sharply drained soil and it will rot in a rich damp bed, so treat it as a specialist rather than a filler.
Cut leaf daisy
Brachyscome multifida spreads into a low carpet of purple or white flowers and it is drought tolerant once it gets going. Good for the awkward gaps where nothing else wants to live.
Blue flax lily
Dianella caerulea gives you small blue flowers and then purple berries after them, so it carries interest for a long stretch of the year. Hardy, and it copes with part shade, which most of this list will not.
Native hibiscus
Alyogyne huegelii, with big purple flowers on a shrub that actually enjoys a hot dry position. Butterflies and bees both work it.
Grevillea
Grevilleas are the honeyeater magnet, and there is a form for nearly any spot you have, from a groundcover to a decent sized shrub. They flower when a lot of other things have given up.
Paperbark and tea tree
Melaleuca throws fluffy white or pink flowers that bring in a wide range of insects, and it makes a low maintenance screen at the same time, so it earns its space twice.
Banksia
The bottlebrush shaped flowers feed birds and insects both, and banksias are tough as long as the drainage is right. Wet feet is the one thing that will kill them.
One thing to get right before you plant any of them
Most Australian natives cannot handle much phosphorus, so a standard vegetable fertiliser will do them harm rather than good. Use a native specific food or nothing at all, and put your effort into drainage instead, because that is what actually decides whether these live or die.
Shop related products
- D.T. Brown Australian Native Flower Mix Seed. The cheapest way to find out what likes your yard.
- Neutrog Bush Tucker 4kg. Low phosphorus, made for natives, which is the whole point.
- Brunnings Propagating Sand 5L. For the sharp drainage the desert pea and the banksias want.
- Brunnings Seed Raising Mix 5L. Native seed is fine and it wants a fine mix to sit in.
- Martins Organic Sugar Cane Bale 11kg. Mulch, kept back off the stems.
Have a look through the garden centre for the seed and the growing gear, and if you want to know which of these ten will actually cope with your particular patch of dirt, come and describe it to me in the shop and we will narrow it down.
More from the garden
- Companion Planting: Flowers to Grow With Your Vegetables
- The Best Summer Blooming Flowers for Your Garden
- How to Care for Your Flower Beds During Scorching Summers
Cheers, Candeece. I am the one standing still in the garden waiting for a bee to land, and I regret nothing.
