Lake County native wildflowers: Bee feast
- Karen Sullivan, Kim Riley and Terre Logsdon
- Posted On
Name: Lacy Phacelia (Phacelia tanacetifolia)
Family: Boraginaceae (Borage)
Common Names: Friend-Of-The-Bees, bee feast, blue tansy, scorpionweed
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Early springtime, windows down, what is that tantalizing scent along the Lake County section of State Highway 20 from Glenhaven to Lucerne?
Most likely, it is Lacy Phacelia (Phacelia tanacetifolia), which is found blooming along the Northshore in profusion typically beginning in early March through April.
Phacelia tanacetifolia is an attention-grabber not only for your eyes and nose, this wildflower native to Lake County and the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, is used in many places as a hedgerow on farms, as it attracts bees and other beneficial insects.
Planted in vineyards and alongside row crops with irrigation, it will continue to grow and flower into the summer months and is highly prized for its long, coiling flower clusters of nectar-rich flowers which open in sequence, giving a long flowering period that attracts not only native and European honey bees, it is also attracts to hoverflies (family Syrphidae), which are useful as biological pest control agents because they eat aphids and other pests.
They also entertain the eyes of those driving along Highway 20 on the Northshore, interspersed with California poppies – the state flower.
This annual wildflower grows two to four feet tall, both in full sun or part shade, with fragrant flowers ranging from white to lavender to blue.
According to Judith Larner Lowry in her book, “Gardening with a Wild Heart,” “researchers in integrated pest management interplanted tansy-leaf phacelia with sugar beets. They found that sugar beet yields were significantly higher in plots grown with phacelia, possibly because adult syrphid flies, which feed on the floral nectar and pollen of phacelia,were significantly abundant. These syrphid flies were credited with reducing the aphids on the nearby sugar beets. Hoverflies as far as 200 meters from the planted phacelia were found with the characteristic blue, star-shaped phacelia pollen in their guts.”
Adding beneficial Lake County native wildflowers to your garden, vineyard, or orchard like Phacelia tanacetifolia is not only good for your crops – it is great for the native wildlife!
Nurseries where you can purchase seeds: https://calscape.org/nurseries.php?id=2875&showmap=1.
Terre Logsdon is an environmentalist, composter, and advocate for agroecology solutions to farming. An avid fan and protector of California wildflowers, plants, natural resources, and the environment, she seeks collaborative solutions to mitigate the effects of climate change. Kim Riley is retired, an avid hiker at Highland Springs, and has lived in Lake County since 1985. After 15 years of trail recovery and maintenance on the Highland Springs trails, she is now focused on native plants, including a native plant and pollinator garden on her property as well as promoting and preserving the beauty of the Highland Springs Recreation Area. Karen Sullivan has operated two nurseries to propagate and cultivate native plants and wildflowers, has lived in Kelseyville for the past 30 years, rides horses far and wide to see as many flowers as possible, and offers native plants and wildflowers for sale to the public. They are collaborating on a book, Highland Springs Recreation Area: A Field Guide, which will be published in the future. In the meanwhile, please visit https://www.facebook.com/HighlandSpringsNaturalists and https://www.facebook.com/HighlandSpringsRecreationArea.