Planting for NZ native bees, Ngaro huruhuru

As I walked down my drive to check the mail, a little flying insect caught my eye, dancing around on the sandy gravel. It was near a series of small piles of sand spread along the grassy edge. This little friend of the garden is a NZ native bee and I was delighted to know I have a home for them here.

Our native bees are solitary. They have a series of holes in the ground, usually a dry bank, and lay their larvae in there, with pollen and nectar for when it is ready to hatch. The hole is carefully capped off with some clay to keep it safe.

There are 40 native bee species in NZ and the Mason Wasp. None of them are threatening to us and most have a sting so fine that it cannot pierce our skin.

Most importantly, for a garden design blog, is what do they feed on to encourage them to your garden? Being short-tongued, native bees are generally better at pollinating NZ native flowers. They particularly are adapted to Manuka, NZ Mistletoe, but are more than happy to also feed on any small flowers. The last couple of years I have grown Coriander, which loves my sandy soil. This year I sowed a large patch of it in the vegetable garden and this it seems, has benefitted the local NZ Bees immensely, besides being a pretty flower in the garden and producing delicious seeds for cooking and baking. Here are a few plants to consider:

Coriander, Parsley, Brassicas, Lettuce, Silverbeet (leave a couple to go to flower in the vegetable garden), Allium (Onion family), Alyssium (Sweet Alice), Phacelia (Purple Tansy), Sedum, Buddleia, Marjoram, Thyme, Hebe, Hoheria (NZ Lacebark), Ceonothus (Californian Lilac), Lucerne (Farms)

The most positive thing you can do to increase the population of NZ native bees in your area, is to have a patch of garden for wildflowers. A neatly cropped dwarf evergreen hedge in front and a plot brimming with wildflowers  is a delightful sight in the garden.

Here is a link for further reading from Permaculture NZ. This article also describes how to build native bee motels and nesting places. https://www.permaculture.org.nz/blog