Honey Bees are welcomed.

It is no secret for those of us out in the garden every day, that honey bees are in trouble.  A few years ago my Miami garden was buzzing with bees, the early morning was a glorious time, you could hear and see hundreds of bees flying from one flower to another.  Today you can count the number of bees visiting the garden and sometime is difficult to find one.

The causes are well known to everyone, loss of habitat, the use of pesticides, colony collapse disorders are many of the reasons.  What can we individual gardeners do?  Georgia Tasker wrote a excellent article in the fall edition of The Tropical Garden magazine about what we can plant in our gardens to help the bees.

This weekend I did my part to help our bee friends, this blue porter plant (one of the bees favorite flower) a volunteer in my front garden and the powder-puff tree are bee central at the DragonFly.   The key to attract more bees is to have a variety of flowers, kind of like a cafeteria for bees.  Yesterday I planted more bee friendly plants like, blue daze, milkweed, white pentas (they prefer the white one) and coleuses. 
Pesticides are another reason for their decline.  My garden has been pesticide free for many years, unfortunate not my neighbors.  Convincing others to stop using pesticide is another way we can help.