One of my goals as a vegetable gardener and orchardist is to promote and encourage a vibrant and healthy population of pollinators around my home and garden. I have found 15 beautiful, easy-care perennials to grow in my garden that really encourage pollinators.

15 Easy Care Perennials to Encourage Pollinators

One of my goals as a vegetable gardener and orchardist is to promote and encourage a vibrant and healthy population of pollinators around my home and garden. I have found 15 beautiful, easy-care perennials to grow in my garden that really encourage pollinators.

One of my goals as a vegetable gardener and orchardist is to promote and encourage a vibrant and healthy population of pollinators around my home and garden. I have found 15 beautiful, easy-care perennials to grow in my garden that encourage pollinators.

A few years ago, I felt like every available bit of growing space on our property must be dedicated to growing only those plants that my family would be able to eat and my efforts in the perennial and annual flower gardens fell to the wayside.

I’ve realized since then that really the most beneficial thing I can do for my vegetable garden is to devote plenty of space in our yard to growing perennial plants that will be blooming throughout the active season of all the pollinators, not just bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. By encouraging their healthy populations, I’m not robbing my vegetable blossoms from pollinators, but rather encouraging the insects to spend some time here rather than searching elsewhere for food.

It’s pollinator hospitality.

I’m so thankful for having had this revelation because there is nothing more enjoyable to me than a home bursting with the beauty and color of flowers!

Being a busy mom to a growing family, who prefers to invest her spare moments tending to the vegetable garden and putting up the surplus for the winter, I need to have perennials that are low-maintenance, easy to grow, and long blooming. I’m also looking to add a variety of plants so there will be blossoms from the last snowflake of spring to the first snowflake of late fall.

Among my favorites are the following…

One of my goals as a vegetable gardener and orchardist is to promote and encourage a vibrant and healthy population of pollinators around my home and garden. I have found 15 beautiful, easy-care perennials to grow in my garden that really encourage pollinators.

15 Easy Care Perennials to Encourage Pollinators

Crocus

Naturalizing crocus, daffodils, and grape hyacinths are my favorite bulbs to grow. There is nothing more hopeful than the sight of that first crocus blossom signifying that a long winter is about to draw to a close!

My personal experience is that the blooms of these three types of bulbs in particular last longer than tulips or hyacinths (although I do love the smell of hyacinths!) and I like too that these naturalize in order to maximize my efforts.

Bloom Time: Early Spring

One of my goals as a vegetable gardener and orchardist is to promote and encourage a vibrant and healthy population of pollinators around my home and garden. I have found 15 beautiful, easy-care perennials to grow in my garden that really encourage pollinators.

Crabapple

Countless times I have shared with you just how much joy the Snowdrift Crabapple in our front yard brings to us each spring (and the birds each fall). This tree hums with life for the couple of weeks it blooms profusely. While that’s not necessarily long lasting, it is certainly low maintenance

Bloom Time: Mid-Spring

One of my goals as a vegetable gardener and orchardist is to promote and encourage a vibrant and healthy population of pollinators around my home and garden. I have found 15 beautiful, easy-care perennials to grow in my garden that really encourage pollinators.

Catmint

Until this year when my chickens dust-bathed in it to death, I had a large Nepeta’s Walker’s Low catmint that grew easily, bloomed for a long while, and would encourage pollinators. It was always covered with bees! Unlike other long-blooming perennials, this one requires no dead-heading to encourage continual blooming. You literally plant it, walk away, and let it do its thing.

Bloom Time: Early Summer to Early Fall

One of my goals as a vegetable gardener and orchardist is to promote and encourage a vibrant and healthy population of pollinators around my home and garden. I have found 15 beautiful, easy-care perennials to grow in my garden that really encourage pollinators.

Salvia

Salvia, particularly ‘May Night’, is reputed to be a long bloomer. Until this year, I always seem to miss mine and don’t dead-head soon enough to encourage further blooming. So far, I’ve had two rounds. I have ‘Firewitch’ Dianthus growing in front of mine and they come on at the same time and I really like the combination.

Bloom Time: Early Summer to Mid Summer

One of my goals as a vegetable gardener and orchardist is to promote and encourage a vibrant and healthy population of pollinators around my home and garden. I have found 15 beautiful, easy-care perennials to grow in my garden that really encourage pollinators.

Bee Balm

Two years ago I planted a small little Monarda ‘Jacob Cline’ in the herb garden and it has grown tremendously! This plant, more than any other we have growing, is what draws the hummingbirds to our garden.

Bloom Time: Mid-Summer to Early Fall

One of my goals as a vegetable gardener and orchardist is to promote and encourage a vibrant and healthy population of pollinators around my home and garden. I have found 15 beautiful, easy-care perennials to grow in my garden that really encourage pollinators.

Coreopsis

I love the variety of shapes and colors that Coreopsis comes in. The plants growing around my home were easily grown from seed and bloomed late the first year! It begins blooming in mid-June here and with easy dead-heading continues to bloom until nearly winter. The bees love it and so do I.

Bloom Time: Early Summer to Early Fall

One of my goals as a vegetable gardener and orchardist is to promote and encourage a vibrant and healthy population of pollinators around my home and garden. I have found 15 beautiful, easy-care perennials to grow in my garden that really encourage pollinators.

Gaillardia

Along with Coreopsis, Gaillardia is another perennial that I was able to grow from seed with very little effort. It’s not quite as easy to dead head, scissors come in handy, but it does bloom just as long as Coreopsis.

Bloom Time:  Early Summer to Early Fall

Yarrow

While in bloom, yarrow is a great flower to encourage pollinators. It comes in several colors, among which Paprika is one of my favorites. However, once the blooms die the stalk dies too and since it’s such a large part of the visible plant, I think it’s among one of the less attractive choices. The leaves on some white yarrow are taller and hide the stalk better.

Bloom Time: Early Summer to Mid-Fall

One of my goals as a vegetable gardener and orchardist is to promote and encourage a vibrant and healthy population of pollinators around my home and garden. I have found 15 beautiful, easy-care perennials to grow in my garden that really encourage pollinators.

Russian Sage

My personal experience with Russian Sage is quite limited- mine has yet to really take off. But it does draw the pollinators, looks stunning in the garden, and blooms extensively with little maintenance.

Bloom Time: Mid-Summer to Mid-Fall

One of my goals as a vegetable gardener and orchardist is to promote and encourage a vibrant and healthy population of pollinators around my home and garden. I have found 15 beautiful, easy-care perennials to grow in my garden that really encourage pollinators.

Butterfly Bush

Butterfly Bush is another plant that I have had a difficult time keeping going in my garden. I wouldn’t take that as any indicator of the hardiness of the plant. It just means that it might not stand up to the abuses of our free-ranging hens. However, during the good years, when it is blooming, it smells delightful and is a magnet for all pollinators. Dead heads can be pruned to encourage an extended season.

Bloom Time: Mid-Summer to Mid-Fall

One of my goals as a vegetable gardener and orchardist is to promote and encourage a vibrant and healthy population of pollinators around my home and garden. I have found 15 beautiful, easy-care perennials to grow in my garden that really encourage pollinators.

Echinacea

Echinacea is so easy to grow, reseeds easily, blooms for a long time with dead heading and is a favorite to encourage pollinators. I think the Purple Coneflower looks stunning with Rudbeckia, but there are so many colors it is available in, it’s hard to choose a favorite. Of course Echinacea also does double duty and is an excellent medicinal herb. I use it to make Echinacea Tincture and Sore Throat Spray.

Bloom Time: Mid-Summer to Mid-Fall

One of my goals as a vegetable gardener and orchardist is to promote and encourage a vibrant and healthy population of pollinators around my home and garden. I have found 15 beautiful, easy-care perennials to grow in my garden that really encourage pollinators.

Rudbeckia

Commonly known as Black Eyed Susan, Rudbeckia is probably my favorite perennial. Not only is it beneficial for the pollinators, but they make a wonderful cut flower that lasts a long time in the vase. The spent blooms need dead headed and Black Eyed Susan will last all the way to winter.

Bloom Time: Mid-Summer to Mid-Fall

One of my goals as a vegetable gardener and orchardist is to promote and encourage a vibrant and healthy population of pollinators around my home and garden. I have found 15 beautiful, easy-care perennials to grow in my garden that really encourage pollinators.

Jerusalem Artichoke

You probably aren’t going to find Jerusalem Artichokes on many perennial lists, but we grow them for their delicious tubers that are dug up after frost, and the fact that they encourage pollinators who enjoy their beautiful yellow blossoms as much as we do is just another benefit.

Bloom Time: Mid Summer to Late Summer

One of my goals as a vegetable gardener and orchardist is to promote and encourage a vibrant and healthy population of pollinators around my home and garden. I have found 15 beautiful, easy-care perennials to grow in my garden that really encourage pollinators.

Aster

Aster blooms long and late and while I don’t have any in my perennial gardens (yet) it grows naturally around the outlying edges of our property each fall. While vacationing in Maine last October there were bright pink border plants growing in the beds of the backyard at the home we rented and I determined to add them to my gardens in the future.

Bloom Time:  Late Summer to Mid-Fall

One of my goals as a vegetable gardener and orchardist is to promote and encourage a vibrant and healthy population of pollinators around my home and garden. I have found 15 beautiful, easy-care perennials to grow in my garden that really encourage pollinators.

Sedum

Sedum is one of the most low-maintenance perennials. Outside of pulling the dead stalks after frost, there is literally nothing I do with them (other than divide them and grow the beds elsewhere every couple years.) Bees seem to glut on them just before the season comes to a close. There are some really stunning new variegated varieties available now. I have one, but it is super tiny because of the aforementioned chicken problems.

Bloom Time: Late Summer to Late Fall

One of my goals as a vegetable gardener and orchardist is to promote and encourage a vibrant and healthy population of pollinators around my home and garden. I have found 15 beautiful, easy-care perennials to grow in my garden that really encourage pollinators.

Finally, another way to encourage pollinators in your garden is to allow your heirloom vegetables go to seed. While the blooms of lettuce or brassicas aren’t too particularly attractive, whenever I leave a few radishes, parsnips, or dill for example to go to seed they are literally buzzing with life of countless varieties.

Shown above is the caterpillar of a Swallowtail butterfly in one of it’s earliest instars. We found several dining on the parsnip flowers in the company of bees, flies, beetles, weevils, spiders, ladybugs (and their larvae), and more.

What are your favorite perennials for attracting pollinators to your gardens?

*For any photos not showing my watermark, click on the image for photo credit.  

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6 Comments

  1. This is why I wanted to create a cottage garden. We have our lovely perennials and herbs (most of which flower) that lure bees into our yard to do their thing! My husband and I don’t really care for annuals, they seem a waste of money, unless they reseed themselves.

    1. Beautiful Heather! Thanks for sharing 🙂 I couldn’t agree more- annuals, unless they grow from seed, freely re-seed, or are edible feel like a waste of my money too. Trouble is I do like the look of a beautiful window box and they’re typically planted with annuals… maybe figure out something that grow small the first year and can be transplanted elsewhere in the fall… 🙂

  2. I have almost all of those in my gardens. The butterfly bush died last year and the Russian Sage is one of my favorites. I just ignore it most of the time and it’s so pretty and smells lovely. I find that the bees love the lamb’s ear also. It’s always covered when in bloom.

    1. I’ve only been able to admire Russian Sage from afar… by the time I bought one the garden was too shaded for it to grow well. Now what’s news to me is that Lambs Ear bloom- I DIDN”T KNOW THAT! I must have had a bum variety (Or I planted it improperly too- which wouldn’t have surprised me. :/ ) So. Funny story. I was reading a book on permaculture and one of the tables in it was a list of plants you could use in place of toilet paper. Lambs’ Ear was on there. So was skunk cabbage- I’d take the lamb’s ear. 😀

    2. I’ve only been able to admire Russian Sage from afar… by the time I bought one the garden was too shaded for it to grow well. Now what’s news to me is that Lambs Ear bloom- I DIDN”T KNOW THAT! I must have had a bum variety (Or I planted it improperly too- which wouldn’t have surprised me. :/ ) So. Funny story. I was reading a book on permaculture and one of the tables in it was a list of plants you could use in place of toilet paper. Lambs’ Ear was on there. So was skunk cabbage- I’d take the lamb’s ear. 😀

  3. Perennials? I don’t have much experience with them, but my pear tree is usually alive with pollinators when it is blooming. It is amazing! As for annuals, I’m sure everyone knows about bunches of them, but one that seems to shine above the rest is buckwheat. When it is blooming, it is a regular zoo! I am doing a lot of studying of permaculture and plan on doing some “guilds” around my fruit trees this year. I’m excited! But, then again, I am usually excited about anything that has to do with the garden and plants at this time of year. LOL!