Plants that don't attract babes and wasps
lindapalmara
Posts: 40
in Plants
My 95 year old mother made me empty a herb bed under her kitchen window because it attracted bees and wasps and she had to keep her windows closed during the summer. She has now asked me to plant perennials but nothing to attract stinging insects, as she has quite a phobias about them. The bed is half circle, about 6 ft by 6 ft. Any ideas please for something easy maintenance.
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Well, bees are attracted to flowers so you need to find some plants that don't have them, such as ornamental grasses.
And wasps are attracted to other insects, which they eat, so you will have to keep greenfly numbers down.
If you live in Derbyshire, as I do.
Grasses are wind pollinated so you could start with some of those. Double forms of flowers tend to be sterile or difficult for bees to access so you could look at those.
The RHS publishes a list of plants to attract pollnating insects so avoid anything on there - https://www.rhs.org.uk/science/pdf/conservation-and-biodiversity/wildlife/rhs_pollinators_plantlist
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
Buy her one of those mesh screens that you can cover her window with
Thanks for your suggestions. Looks like ornamental grasses then
pompom dahlias, double flowered this and that. Not much to attract insects there.
In the sticks near Peterborough
Even those pom pom dahlias open eventually and show pollen, they would have to be dead headed soon after they bloom.
Where does the baby come into it?