Bees Love Purple Phacelia and So Do I!

When it comes to wildflowers almost all the attention centers on perennials. They're marvelous investment plants that you can count on to make a good show in your garden year after year, but, you might want to consider adding a few annuals and biennials that are native to your part of the garden world. They're charming plants and add another dimension to the garden~many of the seedlings and first year plant's foliage is quite attractive. (Gardeners, Do Yourself A Big Favor)

 One of my favorite biennials is Purple Phacelia and it's blooming right now.

It has an interesting musky odor when you brush the leaves and flowers

I can't remember when I first met Phacelia  bipinnatifida but, I remember quite clearly the first time I saw it massed on a hillside. I was going to visit a new friend's garden and was driving up her steep drive, as I turned a bend in the drive every where I looked were blooming Purple Phacelia with bees dancing from flower to flower. There's something splendid about natives that mass naturally, and this was dazzling and magical.  I knew immediately that it had to become a part of Clay and Limestone and if at all possible I wanted it to make a big presence in the garden.

One year from seed, second year to flower, then it dies. 

I don't have hillsides of phacelia, that requires much moister soil than I can give it, but, where it's naturally wet the phacelia shines. 

Let's talk about biennials for just a bit.

To have flowers every year you have to get a colony started, so you need seeds, first year plants and flowering plants. I really was lucky to be given several plants in bloom and many first year seedlings. Here's how it works! Those first flowers were visited by Bumble bees and other pollinators and got fertilized, they set seed and then died. The fallen seeds germinated and over wintered; the following spring the original first year seedlings bloomed and their flowers were fertilized, set seed, and then died.  It's not a complicated process, but it's a brilliant cycle that continues to this day.  

I make sure the cycle is not interrupted. Which means that I collect the seeds and sprinkle them where I want new plants, sometimes I move the tiny seedlings, the first year plants and I have even been known to move second year plants in late winter.  They always seem to survive!

I hope that helps! 

Purple Phacelia plays well with other early blooming native plants.

As all gardeners know, some years are better then others and this has been an especially good year for phacelia...It didn't get hot too fast and we didn't have punishing rains. As Goldilocks said, "...just right." It looks delightful right now and many native bees~like the Mason bee in the top photo, honeybees in one below and small unidentified pollinators have been visiting the plants since they opened. 
Phacelia  has pretty good wildlife value! Bees love it! They want the nectar and pollen and there is plenty of food for a variety of other visitors like skippers and small butterflies.

But, really,  Phacelia is all about the bees and that makes this gardener happy.

xoxogail

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.