Please read the full introduction on the parent page of ‘The Real Botany of Desire’ for why I am listing the observed insect friendly flowers that bloom here during this month, and which seem to be the most popular with the groups of insects which frequent our garden.

Hamamelis ‘Robert’.

If this is a click too far, then briefly, there’s a huge issue with the loss of wild flowers as agriculture intensifies and mono-cultures prevail. This impacts all the insects which rely on flowers as food sources. But all flowers aren’t equal in their appeal to insects, or particular groups of insects, (e.g. honeybees, bumblebees, hoverflies, moths, butterflies) and many nursery-bred plants have been designed to be attractive to our senses, not insects. Some flowers are useful as both pollen and nectar sources whereas others just seem to provide one of these insect foodstuffs.

So this simple record is to help gardeners think about this issue, and maybe plant more flowers to help our very diverse native insect groups. I’ve found that many of the best plants seem to be some of our native wildflowers which can in other respects have real garden merit. Equally, there are many plants from the other side of the globe which are preferentially favoured over native flowers at certain times of the year – there is no simple easy guide to their relative appeal. The positive spin-offs from incorporating more insect friendly flowers in our gardens apart from the appeal of seeing the insects themselves will be better pollination of our crops, and more varied wildlife in our gardens, since insects are at the bottom of many animal food chains.

These pages aren’t comprehensive and if you know other flowers which have equal appeal, which aren’t listed here, do please let me know, and I’ll try them up here as well. This work started a couple of years before my blog began in March 2011, but previous to that I’d produced the UK’s first DVD-ROM guide to Garden Moths ” In a Different Light”. This project attempts to widen that work in a more general way.

As I mention elsewhere, the actual number of flowers of a single plant type growing together, and their position in the garden (e.g. sun, shade) can also impact how favoured the flowers are by your garden’s insect population – in part because sun and warmth can affect nectar and pollen production and release. This is even more critical for early flowering plants – they really need to be sited where they might catch any available full sunshine between about 10.30am and 3.30pm, or it’ll be too cold for any insects to reach them. And also ideally sheltered from prevailing winds.

There are few insects around in January on most days, but Hamamelis flowers are visited by some of the early flies which are around on milder days. But bees and moths don’t seem interested in the spidery blooms. This is Hamamelis ‘Nina’.

In 2012, flowers appeared on Daphne laureola subspp. philippi unseasonably early in January. This equally early Hebrew character moth, Orthosia gothica, took advantage of its rich nectar. The best of our Daphnes, as far as moths are concerned, but a pretty weak and ordinary scent for human noses.

Daphne bholua ‘Jacqueline Postill’ is a wonderful potential nectar and pollen source in January for on-site honey bees, should weather conditions permit foraging, but often this isn’t the case, as in 2021, above.

In 2011/2012, our Camellia sasanqua flowered for the first, (and not repeated in 2012/13), time. They had an attractive scent and obviously appealed to the few flies about on sunnier mild days.

Whether the moth visits for nectar or because the flowers are slightly warmer than the environment, I’m not sure. This is a local form of Galanthus nivalis, the most common native snowdrop. On the last day of January 2013, before any bees or moths had been seen in the garden, a number of these small flies were on and underneath the petals of some snowdrop blooms. Almost certainly they will play some incidental pollinating role, But they may also be benefiting from shelter and possible extra warmth within the flower, on what was a very cool, if sunny day with a strong blustery Northerly wind.

Early snowdrop, Galanthus, cultivars may be visited by both honey bees for pollen, if the weather is mild enough and you have a hive nearby, and occasionally you may find a moth inside the flowers at night. But in the majority of years, there are simply no suitable foraging days throughout the whole month. The bee below was the single one seen throughout the whole of the month in 2019.

Researching the issue of possible thermogenesis in snowdrop flowers is what made me start writing a blog in 2011.

Finally, our favourite early Crocus sieberi ‘Firefly’, is nearly always above ground in January, but rarely has the weather to allow the flowers to open.

Since I first wrote this page in 2012, the weather has changed significantly. Winters have generally become warmer, and wetter. We now have a number of on-site honey bee colonies. Several flowers which didn’t open until February now do so in January. But there still have to be weather windows – typically warmer mizzly days, or even cold ones but with sunshine and very light winds, to allow the bees to visit these early flowers. Watch this short video of our bees foraging at very low temperatures on January 20th 2023.

Open Crocus tommasinianus flowers below in mid-January 2024, but no bees, because it was too cold and windy.

Last updated: 22/01/2024