Create a Raised Bed Pollinator Garden

These pollinator garden plans help invite butterflies, bees, hummingbirds, and more to your garden!

If you're growing veggies or berries (or both), you definitely want pollinators to visit your yard. After all, no pollination means no yummy fruits! One way to attract those helpful bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and other insects is to create a pollinator garden. By providing bees and other pollinators with the flowers and nectar they love to eat, you're basically rolling out the welcome mat for these important and helpful critters.

Let's take a quick look at some pollinator garden basics. We've also got some pollinator garden plans for you to follow or help inspire your own bee or butterfly garden!

Getting Started with Your Pollinator Garden

To get started, just follow these simple garden design rules to create a space both you and your pollinator pals will love:

Add vertical interest with taller plants, shrubs, or a vine on a trellis.
Put tall plants in back, short ones in front.
Choose a selection of plants that will flower at different times all season long so pollinators will have plenty of food.

If you don't have the space or desire to create a whole separate garden, you can simply add a few pollinator plants in with your existing veggie patch. For more basics on making your garden more welcoming for pollinators, check out How to Attract Pollinators.

With pollinator gardens, you get the best results when you tuck plants into rich, organic soil. Miracle-Gro Organic™ Raised Bed & Garden Soil is a great organic soil for both raised beds and in-ground gardens that feeds your plants for up to 2 months. You’ll also want to replenish soil nutrients during the growing season. So, about a month after planting, start using Miracle-Gro Organic™ Plant Food to give plants an instant feeding. If you prefer granular plant food, our Miracle-Gro Organic™ All Purpose Plant Food feeds plants for up to 3 months.

Looking for additional inspiration? Try one of the plans below. You can use these pollinator garden layouts for either in-ground garden beds or raised bed gardens, and each is designed for a different common garden bed size. Adjust the plans to your garden size by simply adding or subtracting a few plants. Though you may not recognize all the names right away, rest assured that these plant varieties are all pretty common.

Pollinator Garden Plan for Continuous Color

This garden layout features a mix of perennials plus an annual vine grown on a trellis. Feel free to change out the vine from year to year. Also consider planting spring flowering bulbs, such as dwarf iris, daffodil, and hyacinth, to add even more spring food sources for pollinators.

Bed size: 4 x 4 ft.

Plants & Supplies Needed:

1 Teepee trellis with Cardinal vine
2 Goldenrods
2 White Coneflowers
4 Alliums
2 Creeping Phlox
2 Asters

Pollinator Garden Plan with Native Plants

When given a choice, pollinators in North America, especially bees, tend to gravitate to plants that are native to North America. This garden plan delivers by serving a buffet of native plants pollinators won’t be able to resist. Until perennials mature, you may have empty spaces in the bed, which can be filled temporarily with annuals such as zinnia, verbena, or ageratum.

Bed size: 3 x 6 ft.

Plants Needed:

3 Lanceleaf Coreopsis
2 Butterfly Weed
2 Switchgrass
1 Joe-Pye Weed
2 Bee Balm
3 Anise Hyssop

Pollinator Garden Plan for Butterflies

With a blend of annuals, perennials, and herbs that butterflies adore, this garden plan is designed just for butterflies! Plants marked with * are there to feed caterpillars.

Bed size: 4 x 8 ft.

Plants Needed: