Best container small shrub for bees?

I've got a very small town yard filled to bursting already with a half dozen container shrubs & plants, plus about 20 other various plants of various sizes with about half that number of bonsai trees and it's for one of the latter that I'm on a quest for another good shrub to attract the bees. I've just "invested" in a lovely crab apple bonsai complete with fruit and I'm keen to ensure that I continue to have fruit on the tree so presumably that will require the flowers to be pollinated?

The only shrub I have that currently attracts bees is a beautiful Deutzia STrawberry Fields which has just decided 2 years of flowers was enough to kill it and rather than replace it I wondered if there might be maybe something else more hardy as this was my 3rd attempt to maintain a Deutzia without great success.

Any shrub needs to be small as I've a severely arthritic right hand & no ability to lift pots over 18 inches in diameter hence why I'm downsizing 95% of my current shrubs to bonsai size.

Any suggestions?

 

Hiya Delta, if it is sunny there consider an agastache.....the hummingbird plant. Ok, not hardy everywhere but flowers all summer and is a bee magnet. Agastache Blue Boa is covered with bees, as are all the agastaches; Kudos Mandarin, Ambrosia and Coral are dwarf highly floriferous plants. They all have aromatic foliage, every variety with a different smell. If you take cuttings you can ensure you have plants for the following year.

Perhaps the Buzz Buddleias too....these are dwarf bushes packed with flower and, as with all buddleias, attractive to bees and butterflies

 

Hi Delta, how about a hardy Fuchsia. There are some wonderful hybrids / cultivars out there. The bees love mine all Summer , hence I have to keep picking the berries off.

 

We have 3 fushia bushes and they are covered in bees and butterfly's

 

I have buddleia tutti frutti. Despite it wilting badly in the heat it's still producing masses of purple flowers. My bug friendly lamium beacon silver is a great plant. It's growing stronger day by day. It's a great way of brightening up a shady corner.

G.

 

Bees love thyme and of course you can harvest it yourself for cooking. Lots of different varieties available, some more shrub like than others. Very hardy and drought tolerant.

And the other favourite for the bees in my garden is bowles mauve. Very long flowing period, something to do with being sterile. Apart from bulbs it was the first plant to flower and is still going strong.

 

Pic of broadleaf thyme I think

 

I would be thinking along the herb path, too. I find that marjoram flowers most of the summer, and there are some lovely golden versions. If you cut back some of the flowering shoots just before, and then others just after, the main flowering time, you can really extend the flowering time. If you are looking for something around the same time as the deutzia, how about a lavender?

 

Agree that lavendar is a good choice....bees have been flocking to my lavendar hedge for a few weeks now

 

Lavender/Caryopteris like Dark Knight for August/September offerings

 

As Verdun says, agastache, I have two agastache black adder plants and they were covered in bees within hours, I was so impressed I now have seeds of another eleven or twelve varieties waiting to be sown next year, also verbena bonariensis and I think they look well together. First picture agastache the taller plant and verbena slightly smaller picture 2 agastache blue boa which Verdun mentioned.

 

Sedums for bees in late summer! Not a shrub, but very easy to grow and manage - and quite a good variety to choose from .... to take over when the lavender is finished