Plantscape has created its first ever specific bee friendly range of planters, and they are already cheering up people – and pollinators – in Birmingham’s trendy Harborne Village.
In fact, it was the determination of the newly formed Harborne Village BID (Business Improvement District) which spurred the Plantscape nursery team into action when it wanted to combine floral colour to the suburb with looking after the environment.
Plantscape, the BID and the Harborne Urban Garden project (HUG for short) worked together to decide on bee friendly alternatives to the more traditional civic planting usually chosen by Plantscape’s clients.
Plantscape sales executive Alan McGregor explained: “Harborne’s board decided they wanted to have a bee and insect friendly theme running through their project and we were asked if we could supply an appropriate range of flowering plants for the barrier baskets. We worked with them to find some plants that would fit their specifications and used a mixture of gaura and verbena plants.”
The 17 seven day watering barrier baskets were installed at the end of June and are already creating a buzz (ha ha) in the village, according to BID manager Kate Smart.
“With the global concern about depleting insect numbers we gathered together a group of likeminded volunteers to help make Harborne Village more environmentally responsible. HUG encouraged us to show our love of all things buzzy and fluttery by planting areas of the High Street with wild flowers and good pollinators to keep our tiny friends happy,” she explained.
“Completely moving away from the usual planting you see around the city, HUG specified the plants used to ensure they’d be beneficial to our bee and insect community and the result is stunning!!
“How wonderful to pretty up this urban environment whilst helping the Harborne insects!”
The HUG has also carried out additional bee friendly planting in the village – with cornflowers, poppies, scabia, cosmos, purple sage, chives and lavender planted in a bed near Sainsburys.
Harborne is one of a number of Birmingham BIDs which work with Plantscape – indeed one of them, Soho Road, was even featured on a BBC TV programme about Britain in Bloom earlier this year.
Now that Harborne has pioneered the new range, Plantscape plans to offer it to other clients for the 2020 summer season.
All displays will contain plants from the RHS list of approved Plants for Pollinators.