CREATING AND LOOKING AFTER YOUR WILDLIFE GARDEN
Our gardens have a wide range of plants from different parts of the world and the more flowers your garden can offer, the more food there is for bees and butterflies. It is helpful, though, if you can grow some native plants for the caterpillar stages. Adult butterflies will only lay their eggs on certain plants such as nasturtium, lady’s smock, mullein and fuchsias as well as holly and ivy.
When buying plants, check the label for flowers that are useful to pollinators. Your choices can make such a difference. Begonias, for example, though brightly coloured, contain almost no nectar. The nectar and pollen parts have been bred out and it’s the same with busy lizzies, hybrid tea roses and carnations. Alternative colour ful and long flowering bedding plants for insects are lobelia, zinnia, echium, snapdragon, single dahlia, verbena, cosmos, poppies and perennial wallflower.
Hedges are brilliant for wildlife but if you don’t have one, plant shrubs and climbers in front of a fence for cover and nest sites. Using the vertical space in a garden disguises the boundar y and makes a garden feel bigger. It also provides look-out posts for birds and safety for perching and roosting.
My whole garden is designed this way but you can devote a small area to nature if that suits best. If we all as individuals do our bit to help, it adds up, helping wildlife and bringing us peace and happiness too. A wildlife garden can be a beautiful garden, colour ful, rewarding and full of life.