VAL'HOR, France's interprofessional organization for horticulture, floristry, and landscaping, alongside the French Observatory of Apidology, is hosting the third edition of Flower Week for Bees from June 14 to 23, 2019.
With pollinator food sources dwindling, experts including nursery professionals, horticulturists, florists, garden centers, and landscapers are uniting to inspire widespread environmental action. This initiative underscores one of plants' key benefits: supporting vital pollinators.
Events across France will raise awareness about pollination challenges, encouraging people to sow and plant billions of bee-friendly flowers in gardens, balconies, and terraces.
During Flower Week for Bees, billions of nectar-rich flowers essential for honeybees will be sown, bolstering their summer nutrition. Backed by collective effort, this will be among the largest mobilizations to aid a species facing extinction.
Sow and plant trees, shrubs, and nectar flowers available at thousands of nurseries, horticulture outlets, florists, and garden centers.
Time is critical. Bee colonies are collapsing worldwide at alarming rates, threatening a third of global harvests that rely on pollination. Meanwhile, human population has tripled in 60 years to 7.5 billion, projected to reach 8.5 billion by 2030.
How will we feed billions without pollinators? A bee-less world means no flowers, fruits, or vegetables. Everyday actions like reducing pesticides matter, but during Flower Week, simple collective planting can provide bees with sustenance to thrive and secure future generations—of bees and humans alike.
Cherry trees, strawberry trees, heather, honeysuckle, broom, lavender, myrtle, tamarisk, viburnum, yarrow, asters, bellflowers, cornflowers, cosmos, foxglove*… These and more bee-attracting plants will be available from professionals during Flower Week.
From June 14 to 23, 2019, garden centers, florists, horticulturists, nurseries, and landscapers nationwide will spotlight pollinator-friendly plants, geolocated on www.flowersforbees.com starting in June. VAL'HOR provides a communication kit to easily identify these plants, empowering everyone to enhance gardens, balconies, and terraces for the environment.
This effort highlights the horticulture, floristry, and landscaping sectors' dedication to plants' ecological value.
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