Photos Of Flowering Plants That Attract Bees

Bees are responsible for pollinating roughly a third of the food we eat, which makes attracting them to your garden one of the most productive things you can do for both your yard and the broader ecosystem. The good news is that bees aren’t particularly difficult to please.

They’re drawn to color, fragrance, and nectar-rich blooms — and there are dozens of beautiful plants that deliver all three while thriving in a home garden setting. Here are 15 flowering plants that bees love, along with what makes each one worth growing.

Lavender

Lavender is one of the most reliably bee-attractive plants you can grow, and the reasons are straightforward: it produces abundant nectar, has a strong fragrance that bees detect from a distance, and blooms for an extended period through summer. Bumblebees and honeybees are both particularly fond of it.

It also thrives in dry, well-drained soil with full sun — a low-maintenance combination that suits most garden situations.

Borage

Borage produces vivid blue star-shaped flowers that are exceptionally high in nectar. Bees visit borage plants repeatedly throughout the day, making it one of the most actively pollinated plants in any garden that grows it.

It’s an annual that self-seeds prolifically, which means that once you plant it, it tends to come back year after year without much intervention. The flowers are also edible — a small bonus.

Catmint

Catmint — not to be confused with catnip, though they’re related — produces clouds of small lavender-blue flowers from late spring through summer, and deadheading encourages a second flush in fall. Bees are attracted to it consistently and in high numbers.

It’s also drought-tolerant, spreads well as a border plant, and requires minimal care once established. The combination of bee appeal and low maintenance makes it a garden staple worth growing.

Echinacea (coneflower)

Echinacea’s large, daisy-like blooms with prominent central cones are well-suited to bees that need a landing platform. Bumblebees in particular are frequent visitors, drawn by the pollen-rich centers.

Echinacea blooms from midsummer into fall, extending the pollination window in the garden when many other plants have finished. It’s also drought-tolerant and comes back reliably as a perennial, making it a strong investment for a low-maintenance bee garden.

Sunflowers

A single sunflower head is actually made up of hundreds of tiny individual flowers, each producing pollen and nectar — which makes sunflowers one of the most productive single plants you can grow for bees. They’re particularly attractive to bumblebees and native bee species.

Single-flowered varieties are more valuable to pollinators than double-flowered types, which have been bred in ways that reduce pollen and nectar accessibility.

Phacelia

Phacelia is widely regarded by beekeepers and pollinator specialists as one of the best nectar plants you can grow for bees. The purple-blue flowers are extremely high in nectar, and their structure is well-suited to bee foraging.

It’s a fast-growing annual that can be used as a ground cover or green manure crop between other plantings. If you can only add one bee-focused plant to your garden, many horticulturalists would point you toward phacelia first.

Foxglove

Foxgloves are particularly beloved by bumblebees — specifically the longer-tongued species like the garden bumblebee, which can reach nectar deep inside the tubular flowers that shorter-tongued bees can’t access. The tall, dramatic flower spikes bloom in early to midsummer and work well as structural plants in a border.

They’re biennial, so you’ll need to plant them in consecutive years to maintain a continuous display, but they self-seed readily in most conditions.

Allium

Alliums — ornamental members of the onion family — produce large globe-shaped flower heads made up of hundreds of tiny individual blooms, each containing nectar. They flower in late spring and early summer when many bee-friendly perennials haven’t yet started, making them an especially valuable gap-filler in the pollinator calendar.

The purple varieties are most commonly grown, and they naturalize well in borders, coming back reliably each spring.

Thyme

Thyme is a dual-purpose plant: a kitchen herb that also produces small but nectar-rich flowers that bees find irresistible. It blooms in early to midsummer with tiny pink or white flowers, and bees will cover a well-established thyme plant in impressive numbers when it’s in full bloom.

Creeping thyme varieties work particularly well as a lawn alternative or between paving stones, creating a fragrant, bee-friendly ground cover. The flowers are also edible and mildly flavored.

Salvia

Salvia is one of the most widely recommended plants for bees, producing tall spikes of tubular flowers in deep blue, purple, or red through summer and into fall. The tubular structure is perfectly designed for bees with the tongue length to access the nectar inside.

Many salvia varieties are also heat-tolerant and deer-resistant, adding to their garden utility. Salvia nemorosa and Salvia x sylvestris are among the most consistently bee-attractive varieties for temperate gardens.

Lemon balm

Lemon balm belongs to the mint family and produces small white flowers that bees find extremely attractive. It has historically been used to attract bees to hives — beekeepers have rubbed hive entrances with fresh lemon balm for centuries to encourage bees to settle.

In the garden, it self-seeds readily and spreads quickly, so growing it in a container prevents it from taking over. The leaves are also useful in the kitchen and as a calming herbal tea.

Black-eyed Susan

Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia) is a native North American wildflower with bright yellow petals surrounding a dark central dome, producing nectar and pollen that attract a wide range of bee species. It blooms from midsummer to frost, making it one of the later-season options on this list.

It naturalizes well in borders and meadow plantings, spreads reliably, and handles drought without significant stress once established.

Wild marjoram (oregano)

Wild marjoram — the same plant that provides the kitchen herb oregano — produces clusters of small pink or purple flowers that are extremely attractive to bees. Studies have found that wild marjoram ranks very highly for bee visitation frequency, with bees covering flowering plants in particularly high numbers on warm, sunny days.

It grows well in dry, alkaline soils that many other plants find challenging, making it useful for difficult spots in the garden.

Comfrey

Comfrey produces bell-shaped flowers in pink, white, or purple that are a reliable and generous nectar source, particularly for bumblebees. The tubular flowers suit longer-tongued bee species, and a large established comfrey plant will buzz with activity in late spring and early summer.

Its deep roots also draw up minerals from the subsoil, making it a useful companion plant for the broader garden as well as a pollinator plant.

Sweet William

Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus) produces dense clusters of small, fragrant flowers in shades of pink, red, white, and bicolor combinations. The open, flat flower structure is easily accessible to bees, and the fragrance is strongly attractive.

Sweet William blooms in late spring and early summer, bridging the gap between spring bulbs and midsummer perennials. It self-seeds reliably and works well in cottage garden borders alongside many of the other plants on this list.

A garden that works harder

Planting for bees doesn’t require a wholesale garden redesign. Even a few well-chosen plants among existing beds can meaningfully increase pollinator activity — and the combination of extended bloom times across the plants above means something is always available from early spring through late fall.

The bees will find it.