Floral calendars, pollen, nectar and bees
Floral calendars, pollen, nectar and bees
Using a bee forage garden to attract more pollinators and volunteers to the Orange ELF Community Garden
Building our Future -
LLCI001-019
The issue
The ELF Community Garden Group established a permaculture community garden at the Orange City Council's Environmental Learning Facility in 2005. The ELF Community Garden group meet twice a month - in the afternoon on the first Saturday of the month and after work on the third Friday of the month.
The ELF Community Garden has been productive thanks to a dedicated band of volunteers and the continuing support of the Orange City Council but is in need of a little rejuvenation in both the garden and the volunteer crew that works in the garden.
In 2017, Central Tablelands Landcare - in conjunction with the ELF Community Garden group established a series of quarterly workshops to be run at the ELF community garden that would hopefully attract new volunteers to the group as well as inspire sharing of knowledge on a range of topics. The first of these workshops was to run a bee forage garden workshop - run in late November 2017.
The solution
The bee forage garden workshop covered topics about what types of flowers attract bees and other pollinators into a garden, steps we can take to make a "floral calendar" to ensure that we are able to support our bees all year round, especially at crucial times of the year like early spring and autumn when most plants in our garden have finished flowering.
By running a workshop on a topical subject - bees - it was hoped that we could also attract new volunteers to help out in the Orange ELF Community Garden.
The impact
The workshop received strong interest, we had about 20 participants on the day - many were new to the ELF Community Garden.
We worked as a group to gain a better understanding of the groups of plants that attracted bees to gardens, started creating a bee floral calendar and then planted and seeded an existing garden to add plants that flowered at times that were identified as gaps in flowering.
All participants went home inspired to learn more about bees and other pollinators they may have in their garden and with a new enthusiasm to create a year-round supply of pollen and nectar for our bees.
Key facts
- Leave some of our vegetable garden plants like onions and rocket go to seed - their flowers are valuable food sources for our bees
- Look for plants to fill gaps in flowering in your garden especially in Autumn and early Spring
- Many hands made light work in enhancing our bee forage garden at the ELF Community Garden