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Ornamental plants are appreciated by humans for their colorfulness, beauty, abundant flowering and long blooming periods. Many ornamental plants can also constitute an additional foraging resource for flower-visiting insects. However, the ability of the popular ornamental plant  Calibrachoa  to support urban insect communities is not well documented. In this study, 20 different  Calibrachoa  cultivars were selected and tested in regard to their insect friendliness based on standardized observations (I) in flight tents using the large earth bumble bee  Bombus terrestris  as a model species and (II) in open field trials. To investigate what floral characteristics might constitute attractiveness to bumble bees, various floral traits were recorded and compared across all tested  Calibrachoa  cultivars. Over a two-year period, a total of 6,327 foraging bumble bees were recorded in the tent observations. In the open field observations, we counted 4,188 flower-visiting insects. Our results revealed that (I) all  Calibrachoa  cultivars were visited by insects for foraging, (II) the number of insect visitors varied significantly among the 20 tested cultivars and (III) the cultivars displayed different floral traits. For the morphometric floral traits and the aroma profiles of  Calibrachoa,  only the mean nectar quantity and a few identified compounds could be correlated with attractiveness to the model species  B. terrestris . We also found that the petal color of the tested cultivars had a significant impact on the number of visitors. Therefore,  B. terrestris  clearly preferred red or blue  Calibrachoa  cultivars over those with other petal colors .  However, as the cultivar preferences in the different insect groups differed, it is highly recommended to use various cultivars in urban plantings. Nevertheless, efforts must be made to explain what additional floral traits make  Calibrachoa  and other ornamental plants generally attractive to flower visitors. This information can then be used for breeding purposes to increase the insect friendliness of ornamental plants.

Comparison of floral traits in Calibrachoa cultivars and assessment of their impacts on attractiveness to flower-visiting insects