I am about to do CBC interviews with weekend morning shows across Canada and I’ve put some links to here for extra information.
First of all, I would advise you to get yourself a good local wildflower/shrub/tree guide and support your local native plant nursery. Purchasing plants sold by a native nursery is a solid investment because of the expertise the growers have and because native plants will be less maintenance and more likely to thrive in your garden. Just ask the grower any questions you might have about the plants that would work for bees in your garden. This will help you use the plant charts in my book to help you plan your garden.
I also encourage you to join iNaturalist and start posting photos of the bees in your garden. It’s empowering and thrilling to get to know your local native bee species! I would encourage you to go to local parks with wild habitat and post the bees in the plants you see there. You can also use iNaturalist as a research tool to see the plants that bees are observed feeding on in your area.
Here are some resources for learning how to post bees on iNat:
How to make useful INaturalist observations
Identification Etiquette on iNaturalist
Pollinator Partnership has some good gardening resources that are specific to regions within Canada. Check to see if they have a growing guide for your bioregion.
https://pollinatorpartnership.ca/en/find-your-roots
https://pollinatorpartnership.ca/en/ecoregional-planting-guides
This online tool can help you find a local native plant nursery near you. https://networkofnature.org/where-to-buy.htm/
Bee City Canada also has a tool for this: https://beecitycanada.org/native-plant-nurseries/
A Trio of Alliums for Bees:
I will be talking about alliums for bees, and for western Canada, the nodding onion (Allium cernuum) is a fantastic native plant for bees. It’s beautiful and it’s edible too. For eastern Canada, you could plant the Canadian onion (Allium canadense). Chives (Allium schoenoprasum) are great to put in your garden for bees. They are edible, of course, but I think they’re pretty enough to put in a perennial border and butterflies love them too. You might not know this, but chives are native to many areas in North America and Europe. I also recommend a bee-loved allium cultivar called ‘Millenium’ which is long-blooming and hardy. Putting a trio of alliums in your garden will really help your local pollinators. Be sure to include one square meter of each of these alliums if your spaces allows it. Even one pot of chives on your balcony can make a difference!
Some other native plants that are must-haves in your garden are fireweed, native asters and goldenrod, which are essential late summer plants for bees.
Companion Books for Victory Gardens for Bees:
For the prairies, you’ll want to buy a copy of Native Plants for the Short Season Yard: Best Picks for the Chinook and Canadian Prairie Zones by Lyndon Penner