London - Gardeners’ growing interest in foreign and exotic plants is helping to save the threatened bumblebee.
Ecologists say growing a variety of plants creates a diverse ecosystem in a garden, providing pollinating insects with a range of food sources.
In a three-month survey of gardens in Plymouth, scientists from the city’s university found that only one, the foxglove, of the six plants most visited by bumblebees was a British native.
Common foreign plants favoured by the bees included trailing bellflower, which originates in the the Balkans, hebe franciscana, from New Zealand and South America, deutzia shrubs from China, and lilac from California.
The study found that bees simply visited plants in proportion to flower availability. Researcher Dr Mick Hanley told the journal Annals of Botany that this should encourage gardeners to cast their net wide when choosing what to cultivate. - Daily Mail