Flower strips and their benefits

Last updated: 03.06.2019

Reading time: 3 minutes

Flower strips in the vegetable garden not only look good, but also provide a habitat for many useful insects and contribute to a natural garden design.

Planting a flowering strip is a good idea for many reasons.

With a lush sea of flowers, you will of course first and foremost attract lots of bees. In addition to the "attractant flowers", they won't miss out on the flowers of your vegetable plants once they are there. They also pollinate peppers , zucchinis, tomatoes and the like.

But not only bees love flower strips. Many other insects also enjoy the protected habitat of an undisturbed flower meadow. Among them are many beneficial insects, such as the ichneumon wasp. Their larvae parasitize aphids and other pests, keeping them in check.

A flower strip provides a near-natural habitat and thus increases diversity among the inhabitants of your garden. The network of interactions between individual species becomes larger and denser, which ensures a more stable garden ecosystem. For example, in a near-natural garden with several flower strips, the risk of pests such as aphids or spider mites getting out of hand is very low. The balance between the various insects ensures that no population can grow excessively.

Above a certain bed size, the risk of wind and rain erosion increases if the soil is not protected by a plant cover or a layer of mulch . To prevent erosion, it can be helpful to repeatedly interrupt large beds with flower strips.

In addition to these positive effects for your vegetable garden, a flower strip also functions as a refuge for plants that would normally grow in this spot if it weren't for your garden. For example, indicator plants will also appear. A flower strip is therefore also a form of renaturation and thus contributes to species conservation - provided that native species are sown.

Last but not least, flower strips can look beautiful, adding variety and interest to your vegetable garden. If the species composition is chosen correctly, there will be continuous flowering and you can enjoy the sight of your garden from April to October.

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Author

Jonas

Jonas studied agricultural biology. He discovered his passion for plants and gardening through an internship at a permaculture NGO. Since then, he has been gardening on his balcony and in community gardens.

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My potato tower worked great this year. Three seed potatoes per tier. That really makes a gardener's heart beat faster. My website has also been updated: https://gartenweltbadaibling.wordpress.com/

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The beautiful weather is still attracting lots of insects. Here’s what I found: Photo 1: the caterpillar of the sorrel hawk-moth—the moth itself is far less colorful. Photos 2, 3, and 4: the yellow-banded furrow bee—I actually always find it on various composite flowers. Photo 5: the common meadow bug; Photo 6: a grove hoverfly on devil’s-bite; Photo 7: a purple fruit bug, also known as the “misidentified Enak”; I’ve photographed it quite often in recent years, but I hadn’t recognized it anymore (hence “misidentified” 😂). Then there’s a male and a female garden wool bee: Photos 8 and 9—purple toadflax is simply irresistible to this species of wild bee. And in Photo 10, though unfortunately very blurry, you can see a cone bee. I saw it for the first time this year, but unfortunately, it wasn’t up for a more extensive photo shoot 🙁.