Earlier this year, John from this blog sent me a photo off his phone of a plant in The Lodge herbaceous borders that was covered in bumblebees. It looked like a yellow scabious, and I thought it might be Scabiosa ochroleuca, but it turned out to be this, Cephalaria. It was a plant I had heard of but never seen being used in a garden before.
So it was interesting to bump into it again this week in another garden near to me. And sure enough, there were bumblebees again roving all over the flowerheads, seemingly intoxicated with it all.
Let's give it it's full name - Cephalaria gigantea. It comes from Russia, and the Latin name gives you a very good idea of one of its features - its size! The flowerheads themselves are big for a scabious-type plant, being a couple of inches across (it is closely related). But what the photo doesn't show is that the plant itself is a bit of a gangler, growing up to 8 feet tall on occasions with really long wiry stems.
So not really one for the smaller garden I'd say. But if you've got a big sunny border, nice and sheltered so it doesn't wave about all over the place, it's definitely one to try if you want those bumblebees of yours to be very, VERY, happy!