Low maintenance perennial flower garden

Heliopsis perennial. They have been flowering for 2 months. The ones I have are about 4 ft tall so they need some support. In addition to be perennial they also seed themselves. The picture is 2 plants.

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Good prairie plant, resists drought

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Lily.

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Interesting, the bees are always working my cucumbers hard. They go nuts for them.

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The bees get no nectar, just pollen, from cucumbers. Bees will die of starvation in June sitting in the middle of 500 acres of cucumbers.

On another earlier note, bees sometimes can work red clover successfully…the second cutting of hay can have stunted and smaller blossoms, and the bees have some success getting nectar from red clover.

Another plant you’d think would produce lots of honey, but doesn’t, is soybeans.

Vitex negundo, not vitex agnus castus, will attract honeybees in droves in mid and late summer. This is the shrub whose leaves look like cannabis.

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i put in a patch of red sorba japanese buckwheat. it has the most beautiful red colored flowers with the red stalks. hasn’t turned to seed yet and is still flowering after 2 frosts. bumbles all over them. they grow bigger than white buckwheat. about 4ft. got them from baker creek heirloom seeds. I’m hoping they make seed so they come back next spring.

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@moose71, extra seeds?

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i used the package i bought but ill be buying some more next spring. i can send you a pack then. least i can do.

I meant if they seeded for you, no need to buy extra.

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no not yet. i don’t think ill get any. its seems to be a much later fruiting buckwheat compared to the white they grow around here. worth buying more though. they are a major attraction in japan when they are flowering. the breeder bred a himalayan buckwheat with the local japanese buckwheat to get this red variety.

Anywhere they plant GMO soy or soy crops convert to GMOs beekeepers see serious decline

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I don’t have a hive, but I throw out red clover seed and some comes up. I get enough happy bees in my yard to pollinate my food crops.

Oh I love 3, 7, 8 and 11! Wish I had even one of them here. I grow iris well. Only one short lily returns though. No daylilies been planted.

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What is your hardiness zone? If you like i can send you some seeds. Take 2 years for flower bloom from seedling. @David_DeafGardening

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8b
We are a mild climate due to proximity to ocean and river, in southernWA

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@David_DeafGardening 15 or so years ago in a beekeeping magazine i wrote in that bees can rarely get nectar from red clover and my statement was confirmed by honey bee experts. I made the statement because so many honey bee keepers believe red clover is a good source of honey. Years ago i watched the bees noting them taking nectar from the florets of white dutch clover, yellow and white sweet clover, alfalfa but rarely (only a few times a year) from red clover. Many other pollinators such as bumblebees have a longer tongue and can get nectar from red clover all the time.

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As a former beekeeper, that Is accurate. Second or third cutting of red clover will sometimes be short and stunted enough, or a rain shower will raise the nectar level in the red clover florets enough for honeybees to benefit. But not often.

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Yeah I didn’t say the happy bees that I get on the red clover are honey bees, just pollinator happy bees. I have a lot of diversity of flowers here.

I found out hummingbirds like bolted kohlrabi flowers. Go figure!

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Peony are up today which worries me. Im not done with taxes yet and already the weather has warmed up on us in February and March. Kansas weather once again is proving to be predictably unpredictable.

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I have a packet of buckwheat from baker creek, but I think it’s a different variety. How did you plant yours, just broadcast the seed? And did you harvest anything from it or just grow for flowers? And… (lots of questions :grinning:) did you till the whole plant in when it was done? I’m new to cover crops if you can’t tell. :upside_down_face: