Attracting Bees and Butterflies to Your Garden

Why Pollinators Need Help All Year Round

Walk along any hedgerow in high summer and you'll hear it before you see it: a low, steady hum that tells you the countryside is working as it should. That hum is the sound of thousands of bees, hoverflies, moths and butterflies moving pollen from flower to flower, and it is far quieter than it used to be. Habitat loss, tidy farming edges, harsh weather and a shortage of food have all taken their toll. The good news is that a garden — however small — can become a genuine refuelling stop.

The trick is to think in terms of the whole year rather than a single glorious June. A pollinator needs three things: nectar and pollen across the seasons, somewhere safe to nest or shelter, and clean water. Get those three right in a modest back garden, an allotment or even a few pots on a patio, and you will be astonished at what turns up.

Choose Flowers That Earn Their Keep

Not all flowers are equal in the eyes of a bee. Highly bred doubles, frilly begonias and most pelargoniums may look splendid on the garden centre bench, but many have lost the nectar and pollen that pollinators actually need. As a rule, single, open flowers with visible centres are the ones to go for.

Reliable, hard-working choices for a British garden include:

• Catmint (Nepeta) — long-flowering, drought-tolerant and irresistible to bumblebees.
• Lavender — thrives in sun and free-draining soil; trim after flowering to keep it bushy.
• Borage and viper's bugloss — brilliant blue, nectar-rich, and happy on poor ground.
• Marjoram and oregano — let a few stems flower instead of harvesting every leaf.
• Field scabious and knapweed — native wildflowers that pull in butterflies as well as bees.
• Sedum (Hylotelephium) — flat heads of pink in late summer, covered in insects on a warm afternoon.
• Foxgloves and honeysuckle — perfect for long-tongued bumblebees.
• Single dahlias and Michaelmas daisies — generous late-season larder before winter closes in.

Plant in generous drifts rather than single specimens. A bee foraging on a patch of catmint will work it far more efficiently than one dotted about among unrelated plants.

Plant for a Long Season, Not Just Midsummer

The hunger months are early spring and late autumn, when nectar is scarce and the weather is unpredictable. In February and March, queen bumblebees emerging from hibernation rely on whatever they can find — crocus, hellebores, snowdrops, mahonia and the catkins of willow and hazel are all lifelines. Allow a native hedge of hawthorn, blackthorn or hazel to flower and it will feed an entire neighbourhood of insects.

At the other end of the year, common ivy is one of the most valuable plants in the country. Its late flowers feed bees, wasps and hoverflies into November, and its berries feed birds through the winter. If you have an old wall or fence with ivy on it, leave it be. Michaelmas daisies, sedum and the last of the hardy geraniums will keep the larder open until the first frosts arrive.

Water, Nesting Sites and Shelter

Pollinators get thirsty, and a garden pond is not always practical. A shallow saucer of water with a few pebbles or corks floating in it is enough. Place it at ground level among the plants, top it up in dry spells, and butterflies will use it to take up minerals from damp ground — a behaviour called mud-puddling.

Shelter is just as important, and often overlooked. Around a fifth of our bumblebee species nest underground in old mouse holes, while others favour tussocky grass or a compost heap. Solitary bees will readily use a simple bee hotel of hollow stems or drilled hardwood blocks, fixed facing south and at least a metre off the ground. Clean it out gently each spring so disease does not build up. A log pile in a shady corner, a bit of leaf litter and a few uncut stems left standing over winter will house everything from ladybirds to overwintering butterfly pupae.

Leave a Few Wild Corners

A perfectly manicured lawn is a hungry place. If you can spare some of it, let a patch grow long between March and September and you will get selfheal, white clover, dandelions and bird's-foot trefoil — all first-rate pollinator plants. Butterflies such as the meadow brown and speckled wood need that longer grass, and the caterpillars of the common blue rely on bird's-foot trefoil specifically.

Stinging nettles are worth a small, contained patch in a sunny spot: peacocks, small tortoiseshells and red admirals all lay their eggs on them. If space is tight, grow a clump in a large pot sunk into the ground so it cannot run. Buckthorn feeds the brimstone, holly feeds the holly blue, and a few native grasses will support the rest. These wilder patches need not be scruffy — a mown path around a longer meadow area looks deliberate and pleasing.

Put the Sprayer Away

Insecticides cannot tell a pest from a pollinator, and a single spray can undo a season's careful planting. Aphids, slugs and caterpillars are food for something else — hoverfly larvae, ladybirds, blue tits, hedgehogs and frogs — so it pays to tolerate a little damage and let the garden find its own balance. Avoid slug pellets, which harm the ground beetles that do the work for you, and choose peat-free compost to protect the bogs that store so much carbon.

The gentlest gardeners tend to have the busiest borders. Feed the insects, give them somewhere to live, keep the water topped up, and your garden will repay you with strawberries that set, apples that swell, and a low summer hum that never quite leaves the air.