Plants to attract pollinators: blue and purple

James Lawrence, RHS Principal Horticultural Advisor, has designed this simple, attractive, and most importantly, sustainable border design, which you can try at home with blue- and purple-flowered plants that are easy to grow, widely available and look good together.

James Lawrence

Pollinating insects are in decline, but there are plenty of flowering plants to help them. Increasing flowering plants in our gardens can also improve fruit and vegetables: with more pollinating insects around, harvests can be bigger and better.

The Origanum provides some ground cover and will help prevent erosion of bare soil. Ground cover plants can also help to reduce soil surface moisture evaporation and suppress weed growth.

Until the plants have filled out, an organic mulch, preferably homemade compost, can help to improve soil moisture retention and weed suppression. Mulches should be spread when the soil is already moist to help trap some of that moisture before it dries out in summer.

1 - Veronica x andersonii provides some evergreen structure with long, dark leaves and spikes of blue to purple flowers in summer.

2 - Callicarpa bodinieri var. giraldii ‘Profusion’ has excellent autumn interest as the foliage takes on pink tints and the bright purple berries display in clusters, which often persist into winter.

3 - Phlox paniculata ‘Blue Paradise’ is a herbaceous perennial

Perennials are plants that live for multiple years. They come in all shapes and sizes and fill our gardens with colourful flowers and ornamental foliage. Many are hardy and can survive outdoors all year round, while less hardy types need protection over winter. The term herbaceous perennial is used to describe long-lived plants without a permanent woody structure (they die back to ground level each autumn), distinguishing them from trees, shrubs and sub-shrubs. with tall leafy stems holding rounded heads of fragrant, dark-eyed, light to violet-blue flowers in early summer.

4 -Echinops ritro 'Veitch's Blue' provides spherical, spiky blue flowerheads, which if left, provide good winter structure. The leaves are silver-green.

5 -Lavandula x intermedia 'Heavenly Scent' provides scented purple summer flowers above grey-green aromatic foliage, giving some structure at the front of the border.

6 - Origanum vulgare ‘Compactum’ has small, aromatic leaves and loose sprays of tiny pale pink to purple flowers from summer to early autumn.

Using scientific evidence, our extensive experience and the records of gardeners and beekeepers, we’ve selected a range of year-round flowering Plants for Pollinators to tackle the decline in pollinator numbers. Visit our Plants for Pollinators page to discover more of the best plants for attracting pollinators.

Many insects are suffering from a lack of pollinator-friendly plants in the countryside to provide nectar and pollen. By offering a good range of pollinator friendly plants in our gardens, we can help these essential creatures to thrive. Increasing biodiversity

The variety of living organisms (plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms) in a particular environment. Boosting the biodiversity of your garden has many benefits, including supporting wildlife, improving soil health and reducing the likelihood of pest and disease problems. is also benefical for encouraging a healthy garden ecosystem in general.

Choose plants with a variety of different flower types and structures in order to attract a wider range of pollinators across the seasons. A succession of overlapping flowering times ensures there is always something available.

Using the ethos of ‘right plant, right place’ to create a sustainable planting combination is great for the environment. It helps avoid waste and the use of products and practices needed to try and help ailing plants, such as the application of fertiliser. It also creates robust, long-lived planting that benefits soil health and garden biodiversity

The variety of living organisms (plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms) in a particular environment. Boosting the biodiversity of your garden has many benefits, including supporting wildlife, improving soil health and reducing the likelihood of pest and disease problems. . For more information about sustainable gardening, please see the RHS Sustainability Strategy.

Additionally, this combination will also attract more pollinating insects into the garden, creating better diversity by in turn encouraging birds and other wildlife into the garden.