Flowers used by North American bees

Scottish flowers.

I know many of you now living the the US were originally from over here and I've had a few requests for "typical Scottish flowers", though Primula scotica is the only truly endemic Scottish flower, the few below are the flowers I used to think of when I lived abroad.

If you really want to put a bit of Scotland in your garden and benefit insects and birds at the same time then there really is just one flower for you - the thistle. Either the Scotch thistle (Onopordum acanthium), or the Spear thistle (Cirsium vulgare). Both are handsome brutes near the top, but rather ugly around the base, so are best planted amongst other flowers. As both grow to over a metre I used to let them grow through a straggly hedge I had. Bees, hover flies, moths and butterflies use them for nectar and pollen, and if you leave the heads on the birds eat the seeds in the winter. They are very spiny though and you need to wear strong gloves when you haul them out. The flowers really are spectacular, there is nothing reserved or delicate about them. Some people cut them and dry them as well. Now if you want something a bit more delicate looking and pretty then I’d recommend the Harebell (Campanula rotundifolia), it looks so thin and delicate with its pale blue nodding bells on spindly stalks, but don’t be fooled. Just outside my back door it pushes it’s way up through paving stones and survives a battering from the north wind. It’s not much good for bumblebees though, as the weight of a a big terrestris queen would haul the flower down, but they are pretty. Both of these flowers are widely seen around field edges and roadside verges. The Harebell is now quite popular in gardens too.

If you want a shrub then there is nothing better than Common gorse, or as most Scottish people know it, the Whin (Ulex europaeus). It, too, is very spiny and grows in hedges and along the roadside verges. In our last house it grew up the lane and the whole place smelled of almonds in the summer. The nice thing about whins is they have a poor idea of what season it is, so you can usually find some flowers in every season, but early summer is when there is an explosion of yellow over the hills. The bees like the flowers, and you can tell if the flowers have been visited as they explode with the weight of the bee sitting on them. This releases the stamens which have been curled up inside the closed flower like coiled springs; they bounce up hitting the bee’s abdomen and covering it in pollen ready to pollinate the stigma of an older flower. If you want something a bit more restrained then there are always the thousands of heather varieties available. There are heathers (Calluna spp. and Erica spp.) that flower during most of the year, and the stems and leaves provide the queens with shelter during rain and hail storms.

Many wildflower seeds are now available from seedsmen, but do remember there may be restrictions on introducing alien plants into your part of the world.