How bumblebee friendly are you?

[mothhawk]

Just found this survey at the Bumblebee Conservation Trust site Welcome | Bee kind that works out how bumblebee friendly your garden is.

Tick every flower in the list that you grow, and it will work out your score and recommend ten more flowers to grow.

I scored 2444 in the "less than 50 sq mtrs" category.

[veggiechicken]

I scored 4814 in the large garden category
Very interesting quiz, Thanks MH

[Madasafish]

3824.. large garden..

Exhausted..

[Peppermint]

2,907 but we only have a small flower garden but we are trying to create flower areas across the rest of the garden near the vegetable plots and fruit cage. I keep adding a few more bee-friendly plants each year and take seeds off the ones that are established. The comfrey has been a huge success (there are bees on it every time I go past) so I'll be taking root cuttings from this and putting in other areas around the garden.

[FB.]

The website wanted me to sign-up - including my personal details - which I declined to do, so I never got to find out the answer.
It felt like I was ticking two or three on most pages, ranging from spring bulbs to foxgloves to lilac and buddleia through to herbs.
Unfortunately many of the plants listed which I didn't tick simply cannot be grown in my soil/climate - we've tried (climate is very-low-rainfall, soil is infertile, light, sandy-gravelly-chalky slightly alkaline).

[Feral007]

The total was at the top of each page after you ticked FB - unfortunately I went over to that last page too and lost the total then!

Can't grow some of those things here. And we have our own climate/soil issues as you know.

On the plus side......some of my Noxious weeds that keep me on the weed inspectors hit list also boosted my score Only got 1200+ but there are a few that I"m planning on putting in that I haven't yet, so not bad. And there seems to be a lot of bees around here so I don't think we do have a problem. Just need to have more in the paddocks. Some herbaceous corridors. I'm looking to encourage the native bees here as well so that's someething else to look at

[mothhawk]

The website wanted me to sign-up - including my personal details - which I declined to do, so I never got to find out the answer.
It felt like I was ticking two or three on most pages, ranging from spring bulbs to foxgloves to lilac and buddleia through to herbs.
Unfortunately many of the plants listed which I didn't tick simply cannot be grown in my soil/climate - we've tried (climate is very-low-rainfall, soil is infertile, light, sandy-gravelly-chalky slightly alkaline.

Bet you can grow scabious then FB, something I can't on my heavy clay

[rustylady]

2,534 for me in a small garden.

[FB.]

The total was at the top of each page after you ticked FB

Aha!

When I clicked on the link again, the top of the page had a score of 2374 and a quick look at what was ticked seemed to confirm that the website had remembered what I'd typed.

[Mikey]

Where do you add the size of your garden?

[mothhawk]

You don't, Mikey, sorry, that was me confusing the issue, but when you get to the end, and get your score, there is a list on the right hand side (you may have to scroll down), that says:

Your score explained

The amount of space you have in your garden will understandably affect your Bee kind score. As a guide, here is what we consider to be a excellent score for different sizes of garden.
Score Garden Type
500 Window box
2,500 Small garden (less than 50sqm)
4,000 Medium garden (50-100sqm)
5,500 Large garden (over 100sqm)
3,000 Educational garden
4,500 Community garden
3,000 Business garden

and if you've filled in your address, when you click on "see your results on our UK map" you are given your score, the top score, and the average score for your region.

[dogsbody]

And I was confused and ended up in the wrong region. Ended up in NE and should have been in EM....

2624 for a large garden - and not all of them were weeds!

[Bren In Pots]

I only scored 2,017 but the Bees must like our garden because we've got both Tree and bumble bees living here.

[mothhawk]

The survey is a bit misleading IMO because it seems to be scoring on plant variety, but if you have ten of two different flowers that keep the bees fed until the next months plants start to bloom, that's as good as having one each of twenty different plants that all flower at the same time, if that makes sense.

I've noticed that the bumbles (when I have any) love foxgloves but rarely go round the delphiniums, while the masons and leafcutters ignore the foxgloves and make a beeline (ha-ha) for the delphiniums, and both like limnanthes.

[Nicos]

3,894

What I like about the survey is that the list has piccies of plants I don't know the names of.
I'll be keeping my eyes peeled now for varieties I don't have.
Interesting link- thanks!