Do you enjoy having bees in your garden to pollinate all your flowers? To many gardeners, getting the most pollinating creatures is a big goal to making the garden big and beautiful.
To have a nice and healthy garden, animal and insect diversity is needed to create a wonderful ecosystem.
If your garden is struggling, you might be wondering what it is that your garden is missing. Is it fertilizer? Under or over watering? Do you have a lack of bees?
The desire to have bees is common amongst those who love having big and bright flowers displayed.
These bright flowers attract bees, but what other plants attract them as well? Is lavender a good bee magnet?
Do Bees Like Lavender?
Lavender is a very lovely flower and herb to have growing in your garden. It looks beautiful, smells great, and is amazing at keeping your garden healthy.
Too many pests, lavender is a disgusting plant that smells terrible. However, to wanted creatures, lavender is a lovely attractor.
If you want bees to take home in your garden, having lavender plants is a great way to do it.
While lavender isn’t the only plant that brings bees over, the video below shares several plants that will do a great job at attracting bees, it will bring both bees and beauty to your yard.
What Bee Likes Lavender The Most?
Many kinds of bees will take enjoyment from getting a bite of pollen from the local lavender plant. However, many sources have agreed that the biggest fan of lavender is the bumblebee.
These giant friends are both adorable to have in your yard and also make your yard so much healthier by being big pollinating helpers.
Bumblebees have a much easier time than honeybees with getting the nectar and pollen out of your lavender plants.
According to various studies, such as the one put on by the University of Sussex, bumblebees like lavender flowers more than honeybees because their tongues are longer.
The longer tongues that bumblebees have allow them to reach further down into the lavender flower, as the shape of this flower is narrow but deep.
Honeybees, on the other hand, have to shove their faces or even whole bodies into the flower to reach all of the nectar. That isn’t nearly as efficient.
Specifically, bumblebees spend around 1.4 seconds per lavender flower whereas the honeybee spends a whopping 3.5 seconds.
A bee’s life is all about efficiency. They have to get as much pollen and nectar as possible to produce as much honey as possible.
Honeybees won’t bother with lavender as much, instead focusing on the shallower flowers that they can reach much easier.
This isn’t to say that lavender won’t catch the attention of honeybees, but it won’t be their main snack.
Why Do Bees Like Lavender?
We already know that bumblebees like lavender more than honeybees, but why do they like the lavender flower at all.
The easiest answer to this question is to say that the pleasant aroma and fun color of the plant are highly attractive to these small creatures. Bees know that flowers that look nice will probably make nice honey as well.
Lavender also has a much stronger scent compared to other kinds of flowers and that will better get the attention of bees that are passing by.
You can’t skip past lavender when you can sense it from miles away (or bee miles to be more accurate.)
Another reason why lavender attracts bees is that inside the flower is a super sweet nectar that is like simple syrup to the bee tongue.
Anything that smells or tastes sweet will get the attention of nearby bees. It’s tasty to them and the honey produced is tasty to us.
If you want a more scientific answer to why bees love lavender, another reason for their love is the chemical compounds in the lavender plant.
In the lavender flowers, there’s a chemical called linalool which naturally attracts bees. Just don’t have too much of this chemical because bees can’t handle it in too high of amounts.
What Other Creatures Does Lavender Attract?
While bees love lavender, they aren’t the only creature that will seek out these sweet-smelling purple flowers. The lavender plant attracts many creatures both larger and smaller to your garden.
First, lavender will attract wasps as much as it attracts bees. From the two creatures being so similar, wasps and bees have similar likes and dislikes.
It’s not unlikely that your bee-friendly garden will also attract the occasional wasp.
On the prettier side, lavender will attract many butterflies to your yard. Butterflies love to eat the nectar of flowers, and they eat from their feet!
If you have plenty of lavender in your garden, you’ll probably see butterflies landing on them and getting a good snack.
Likewise, you’ll also see hummingbirds in your yard if you have lots of lavender. Hummingbirds, like butterflies, love to snack on nectar whenever they can.
These small birds have long tongues that can easily suck the nectar out of the small and narrow flowers that lavender have.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I Put Lavender in My Garden?
There are so many reasons why it is beneficial to have lavender in your garden. Not only isn’t it pretty and it smells wonderful, but it brings all the pollinators to your garden while repelling all the pests.
Lavender does a wonderful job of keeping all the other plants in your garden healthy by bringing all the good creatures in and making sure that none of the bad creatures take a bite.
Many grazing animals that you won’t want in your yards, such as rabbits and deer, will also be repelled by the strong scent of lavender.
If you want a healthy garden that smells wonderful when you set foot outside, then you definitely should put lavender in your garden.
What Can You Not Put Near Lavender?
If you are planning on putting lavender in your garden, you should know what NOT to plant it next to.
Some plants aren’t compatible with the needs of lavender and some other plants grow at such an insane rate that it will threaten the lavender’s survival.
Don’t plant mint next to your lavender. Mint has very different growing needs than the purple plant which will make keeping both of them alive very difficult if you plant them next to each other. Not only does mint have different growing needs, but they are also insane spreaders that might choke out your lavender plants.
Any plant that needs a lot of shade won’t make good friends with lavender. They have different needs because the lavender plant loves to get plenty of sunshine throughout the day.
Camellias and lavender should stay separate in a garden. Lavender likes to have moist soil, but it can’t handle the high amounts of water that camellias need to thrive. If they are next to each other, either your lavender will drown, or your camellia will dry up.
Does Lavender Spread Quickly?
If you don’t have a system for keeping the growth of your garden plants controlled, many plants will take the opportunity and spread as far as they can. Lavender is similar to this. They are both fast growers and fast spreaders.
Lavender is such a lovely flower that some wouldn’t mind having a whole field of them. However, the more lavender you have, the less of other garden plants you’ll be able to grow as well.
Do Birds Like Lavender?
As we touched on in the previous section, lavender attracts hummingbirds! Lavender does an amazing job bringing biodiversity into your garden without threatening its safety.
However, lavender won’t specifically attract other kinds of birds into your garden. A healthy and bright garden will generally bring birds flying around, but you might need to do some extra work if you want to have bird friends in your garden.
If you want birds around, invest in a bird feeder or even a bird fountain. They love this and will look amazing next to the lavender and other flowers that you have growing.
Final Thoughts
If you want a garden that is beautiful and full of helpful pollinators, you will want to plant a lavender plant. Bees, especially bumblebees, love lavender in its entirety. The looks, the scent, and the taste is something that bees absolutely love.
If you want bees, get some lavender. Also, if you plant lavender, you will see other lovely creatures such as beautiful butterflies and fluttering hummingbirds. Each creature has its place in the garden habitat and having lavender can be a big part of that.
If you have any questions on bees or lavender, feel free to let us know in the comments.
Also, tell us about what flowers and insects you have in your garden. Is your garden also a bee magnet or do you find that birds can’t seem to stay away?
