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SeedBall - Bee

SeedBall - Bee

Regular price £5.95
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Seedball Bee Mix

A careful selection of native wildflower seeds that bees will just love! Our mix uses only species recommended by the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, and includes both early and late summer flowering plants:

Foxglove - Digitalis purpurea - Perennial.  Flowers May - September

Viper’s-bugloss - Echium vulgare - Perennial. Flowers June - September

Birdsfoot trefoil - Lotus corniculatus - Perennial. Flowers April - September

Wild marjoram - Origanum vulgare - Perennial. Flowers June - October

Red clover - Trifolium pretense - Perennial.  Flowers April - November

Each tin contains at least 20 seed balls!

Each seed ball contains approximately 100 bee mix seeds. For best results, scatter in the spring or autumn

All seed is responsibly sourced in the UK from Flora Locale accredited suppliers, we use only peat-free compost and our steel tins are manufactured in London (they are also super re-usable and recyclable).

SEEDBALL is run by project MAYA, a non-profit eco-social enterprise working to promote environmental sustainability following the principles of permaculture. 

Seed balls are a great permaculture technique for growing seed in a more simple and effective way. SEEDBALL have applied this technique to make wildflower seed balls, as growing wildflowers from seed can be super challenging! As life can get pretty hectic, Seedball wanted to make it a bit easier for everyone to have gardens, balconies and window boxes that are bursting with native wildflowers, buzzing bees and beautiful butterflies! 

Each seed ball contains a mini ecosystem: wildflower seeds are mixed with clay, peat-free compost and a smidgen of chili powder, and rolled into a small ball. Each ball is approximately 1 cm in diameter, making them so easy to just scatter. The dried clay acts as a protective casing from common seed predators (such as ants, mice and birds). When sufficient rain permeates the clay, the seeds inside begin to germinate - helped along by the nutrients and minerals contained within the balls. The chili powder continues to deter predators while the seed ball slowly degrades and the seeds sprout. 

Seed balls will work well in most environments (as long as the type of seed used is suited to that environment) and they are particularly useful in dry and arid areas where rainfall is highly unpredictable and in severely degraded land. Various forms of seed balls have been used throughout history - from ancient Chinese civilizations to Native American tribes! More recently, seed balls were promoted by the Japanese natural farming innovator Masanobu Fukuoka. Fukuoka demonstrated that with the labour of just two people working a few weeks a year, seed balls could produce high crop yields without the need for plowing, weeding, or the application of pesticides and fertilizer.

Although the use of seed balls in the UK is only just emerging, they are commonly used in ecological restoration projects across many other parts of the world, such as the Rainmaker Project in Kenya. They have also been used creatively for re-greening urban areas and for urban gardening (sometimes in very unusual places!). 

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