Get your garden buzzing with a nectar cafe and pond

RHS GREENER GARDENING: CONTAINERS by Ann Treneman (Mitchell Beazley £18.99, 160pp) CONSTANCE CRAIG SMITH

GROWING plants in containers is often seen as a poor relation to growing them in a bed or border. ‘if your garden soil isn’t right for this plant,’ the experts tell us, ‘you can always put it in a pot.’

in this enlightening guide to container gardening, Ann Treneman comprehensively dispels the notion that growing plants in a pot is in any way a second-best option.

Let your creativity run wild, she advises, and a container garden can be both productive and a riot of colour — a herb garden, a tiny orchard, a wildflower garden, a water garden or a miniature forest.

All the bases are covered: where to site your containers; how to recycle or repurpose buckets, sinks and troughs to use them as pots; how to water and feed your plants, and what to grow.

But the real strength of this book is the author’s enthusiasm for creating a container garden that will not only look beautiful but will also benefit nature.

‘Containers bring joy on many levels,’ Treneman writes, ‘but attracting wildlife adds another dimension.’

rather than accumulating a random assortment of plants, she recommends choosing a theme for a container garden.

This could be formal, with clipped balls of evergreens and small trees; tropical, with brightly coloured flowers and lush foliage; Mediterranean-style, with drought-tolerant edible herbs and lavender; traditional annual bedding which changes with the seasons, or a relaxed cottage-garden look.

if you have room for one large container, a pocket forest is an inspired idea. Choose a tree like a crab-apple, rowan or hazel, all of which can be found in smaller sizes, and underplant with a multi- stemmed shrub such as elderflower, dog rose or cornus.

For maximum impact, add a further layer of small ferns and bulbs at the base.

Don’t shy away from large containers, even if your outdoor space is restricted, she says, because ‘planted in a small space they make the area look bigger, and the height of the trees will add another dimension, creating a sense of privacy and feeling of immersion’.

or how about putting together several pots to create a mini meadow, which could easily and inexpensively be grown from seed. Choose native flowers such as cornflowers, corn cockle, ox- eye daisies and poppies,

mixed in with native perennials including red campion, field scabious, wild carrot and marjoram. ‘Bees, insects and birds will love it just as much as you will,’ Treneman promises.

Another way to attract pollinators is to establish a ‘nectar cafe’, specially designed for bumblebees, solitary bees, honey bees, hoverflies, butterflies and moths. This can be created in a space as small as a windowbox or as large as a raised bed, as long as it’s in a warm, sunny spot, sheltered from the wind.

Treneman recommends flowers which do not have overly elaborate petals or double layers, as they make it hard for pollinators to find nectar.

Primroses, English bluebells, sweet rocket, marjoram, thyme, borage, lavender, cosmos, tobacco plants and evening primroses will all have beneficial insects buzzing happily around your garden. But the real gamechanger for wildlife is a pond, even if it’s in a metal bucket, or a washing-up bowl. ‘Water brings movement and dancing light to any space,’ Treneman says, and will attract thirsty birds as well as dragonflies and damselflies.

She speaks from experience: ‘I still can’t get over how, a few days after creating my small container pond, a stunning blue dragonfly came to visit,’ she exults.

Treneman is a distinguished journalist as well as a garden designer — she won the RHS People’s Choice Award for her Wild Kitchen Garden at the 2022 Chelsea Flower Show — and this is an elegantly written, informative book. her heartening message is that ‘ anyone, anywhere, can create a garden, no matter what size, that will benefit the planet.’