hello this is angela with parkrose permaculture it is a gorgeous day here in portland oregon
we just got home from a bike ride to our local dairy park
now i live in the park rose neighborhood that's why my channel is called park roast permaculture
it's in northeast portland and this part of town used to be agricultural until you know
probably 50 80 years ago my dad's house a block away from me used to be a cherry orchard
and our house used to have quite a bit more property and there was an orchard in the back
and the local dairy park sun's dairy park used to be a dairy but now it is kind of a community hub
where the local playground is there the local community garden is there and there's also
a like a picnic area and it's ringed by a native's garden and then there's a little
section up by the street that has big boulders and rocks and lots of sun and it is planted with kind
of a wildflower mix meadow pollinator garden and while my boys were playing at the playground today
i walked over and checked out the plants growing there and one of them is in full
bloom and i thought this is the right time i need to talk with y'all about this plant because
in my garden i have this growing in a little bit of a shadier spot and it's not yet blooming
but it's a plant that i think if you care about our pollinators if you care about native bees
you should make a spot for this in your garden so the plant i'm talking about is facilia so
facilia is a genus of more than 200 flowering annual and perennial plants in the borage family
it is a plant that makes a great choice for the back of a rain garden
or in a wildflower meadow so facilia is called scorpion weed because it has the blossoms
growing in a curl much like comfrey blossoms and looks a little bit like a coiled scorpion's tail
the blossoms are really open with the anthers and pollen easily accessible the
nectar easily accessible it is a plant that i have found that honeybees and bumblebees and solitary
bees absolutely adore they will visit it just endlessly and it blooms for a long period of time
now when growing the annual facilities you want to make sure
that the species you are growing in your area is not considered invasive vasilia tanaceta folia is
invasive in many places however what i have found in growing multiple annual and perennial species
of celia is that it does self-sow pretty well but not any more vigorously than calendula or
borage or nigella or any of the other annual self-sowing garden flowering plants we all
enjoy so much i've also found it's very easy to pull it up if it comes up where you don't want it
so what does facilia need to grow it needs full sun it does very well in poor rocky clay
soil it does very well in a rock garden or rain garden where you get extra reflective heat off
of the rocks and gravel that help create a warm microclimate i found that i grow it in my rain
garden i grow perennial in annual facilia on the back side of my rain garden so the inside
of my rain garden has lots of water and consistent moisture throughout the year the back side of the
berm of the rain garden is where you want to grow plants that do well with low water and high sun
facilia is a great choice there now the perennial facilia facilia californica
is one that you can grow here in portland however if it is very cold and snowy in the winter
you may want to mulch it and cover it i found i've lost some of my plants this past winter because we
had quite a bit of snow it does die back to the ground in winter and then comes up pretty early
in the spring actually and then flowers in late june and july the annual facilia's you want to
sow the seeds in late fall through late winter and even in very early spring in order to get blooms
in late may through late june depending on the species and depending on your climate
so i grow the annuals because i get the blooms late may through late june i grow the perennial
facilia because then i get the blooms in late june mid to late june through july
that way i have that consistent chain of lots of pollinator food in my garden
this is where i want to take a moment to say that
i know i talk a lot on this channel and on my instagram and on my patreon
about planting for pollinators as a permaculturist as somebody who cares about my garden and as a
beekeeper i care very much about native bees and bee habitat it's really trendy right now to vilify
the art and craft of beekeeping it's really really trendy to turn honeybees into a
bad guy frequently it is one study that is cited and there tends to be a dietary or
political ideology that drives this argument that honeybees are bad and we need to get rid of them
this one study showed that honeybees and native bees compete for pollen and nectar sources
and therefore the conclusion is we should stop beekeeping and get rid of honeybees because they
are depriving native bees of food a whole lot of reasons that argument is real real fallacious but
let me just say that the problem is people the problem is that we have destroyed habitat
we have deprived the native pollinators of forage of sources of pollen and nectar
we have created monocultures of lawns of soy fields of almond groves that are devoid of
food for our native pollinators we have created a situation in which there is a shortage of food
so in permaculture we talk about pushing toward abundance we talk about how there is no limit to
abundance we don't need to hamper ourselves by saying this is the most we can get so when you
present an argument saying there is x amount of forage for bees honeybees and native bees compete
for forage therefore the solution is reduction is reducing the number of bee species and eliminating
honeybees permaculture would say the solution is plant more forage plant more flowers we can plant
for pollinator food sources so that instead of creating an antagonistic relationship where we
say that we can support honeybees or native bees human beings can undo the damage we have done by
stripping locations of pollinator habitat and food sources and instead choose to plant flowers
flowers that bees like and facilia is a flower that bumblebees and native solitary bees
adore they love it they will just carpet my facilia here through may through the end of july
they are feasting on facilia so if you're looking to diversify the amount of
pollen and nectar sources for native bees add facilia to your list i want
a nectar flow from january through december i know i live in a mild climate but i want to create as
much of a diverse and abundant supply of food for my bees as i possibly can for my bees and
for the wild bees in my ecosystem so when you plant facilia you are caring for our native bees
so when growing facilia as an annual i do want to say if you're looking at it from
a cottage garden flower border perspective it gets a little ratty looking as it ages so the
blooms much like a comfrey they bloom out in a spiral and as it gets down to the latter
half of the spiral of blossom's opening you find that the foliage looks pretty tatty
if you want to grow facilia in your flower border or in your rain garden in a sunny spot consider
planting it in a wildflower mix consider planting it with under plantings of plants that are just a
little bit shorter so the facilia blossoms are up here and that ratty looking foliage is covered by
other shorter plants in bloom and that way you create a nice stack and a nice visual appeal
in your garden and you don't end up with that kind of scraggly look i've found that being an
ambassador for permaculture being an ambassador for creating habitat for our pollinators
is easier to do if your garden is pretty if it looks really good if you can say hey you can also
grow a wildflower garden and it looks really nice so thinking about our design in terms of
functionality of permaculture but also thinking about our design in terms of aesthetic beauty
and being an ambassador for sustainable agriculture and sustainable ways of living
so i hope that that helps you learn a little bit about bee's friend slash scorpionweed facilia
think about whether you want to grow those perennial lower growing facilities like facilia
californica or the taller airy breezy annual facilities check and make sure that you don't have
any restrictions on growing facilia tennessee to folia or any of the other self sewers in
your garden provide that food for our native pollinators knowing that
we as permaculturists we as gardeners have the option to increase habitat increase forage
plan for abundance and provide a safe haven for our pollinators where the landscapes around
us may be monoculture lawn food deserts but we know in our garden we have a safe harbor
where pollinators can thrive where we can help produce as much habitat and forage for them as
possible so in doing that consider adding facilia to your list so if you enjoyed this video please
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all of those things are ways you can help support me in making more videos for all of y'all also if
you have questions and comments i try to get to all of them but i have been getting so many
more comments lately as i am pushing up on 10 000 subscribers that it's hard to answer
everybody's questions but please know that i read all of the comments and if you make suggestions
for future videos i try to cover that topic whenever possible so i'll be back tomorrow thanks