VAL BOURNE’S WILDLIFE GARDEN
Val uses valerian to woo her favourite nectar collector, the hummingbird hawk-moth
Val uses valerian to woo a favourite nectar collector
ANATURALLY run garden teems with life. At this time of year, when you gaze above the flowers, you should see colourful butterflies, hoverflies, bees and wasps feasting on the nectar. As much as I admire bees, butterflies and wasps, my favourite visitor is the hummingbird hawk-moth (Macroglossum stellatarum). It’s well-named because the wings move at an incredible speed, yet it appears to glide from flower to flower.
A migrant from North Africa and southern Europe, it has arrived in force this year, particularly in southern and eastern England. In my garden at Spring Cottage its preferred nectar provider is red valerian (Centranthus ruber),a Mediterranean plant that can be invasive. I only manage to grow the pink and white form of it because, however hard I try, the red form eludes me.
As many of you will know valerian is a prolific self-seeder, especially the white form, and part of my garden regime is to clip off all the flowering heads as they finish. Deadheading keeps the flowers going until late in the year and if a valerian gets straggly, it’s chopped back to nothing in July and August and then reshoots. Its quite possible to have valerian in flower between April and late-October.
I also have a Moroccan lavender-pink, Centranthus lecoqii, and this has proved hardy, even here at Cold Aston, because it’s from the High Atlas Mountains. It’s been in several Chelsea gardens, as it hovers between pink and blue, and is now more
“Its wings move at incredible speed”
readily available ( bethchatto.co.uk ).
Interestingly the hummingbird hawkmoths don’t distinguish between these two similar valerians (as they both have individual flowers with very long-tubes). Watching them is akin to watching someone empty a yard of ale.
I admire the valerian greatly because it’s like a billowing cloud, but I’ve noticed something else; on sunny days there isn’t much fragrance at all, but on cooler damp days (when there are fewer bees about) valerian flowers produce an unpleasant dog-dirt odour that attracts flies. However, this smell doesn’t seem to put off my hummingbird hawk-moths and they’re often in my garden April to late-autumn.
The natural world is dynamic and numbers of these hawk-moths constantly change. The Best Beloved noticed that the black and white patterns differ from moth to moth and recognised four different ones. He gave them numbers, but I would prefer to name them after famous hedonists like Byron, Caligula, Oscar Wilde and Casanova.