Why a wildlife-friendly garden is worth the effort

Anyone who has spent a warm July afternoon watching bumblebees work along a lavender hedge knows the quiet pleasure of a garden that is doing some good. Pollinators need two things above all: food and shelter, from early spring right through to the first frosts. Our gardens and allotments, taken together, cover more ground than all our national nature reserves combined, so what we do in them genuinely matters.

The encouraging news is that you do not need a large plot, a big budget, or any particular expertise. A modest corner, a few well-chosen plants and a shallow dish of water will bring in bees, butterflies, hoverflies and moths within a single season.

Start with native wildflowers

Native plants and pollinators have evolved together over thousands of years, so they tend to be the most generous hosts. If you have a sunny patch of poor soil — even two metres by one — you have the makings of a wildflower strip.

• Spring: cowslip, red dead-nettle, wild strawberry, foxglove.
• Early summer: ox-eye daisy, bird's-foot trefoil, red clover, meadow cranesbill.
• Midsummer: common knapweed, field scabious, yarrow, purple loosestrife for damp spots.
• Late summer and autumn: devil's-bit scabious, teasel, wild marjoram and ivy, whose flowers are a lifeline for late bees and hoverflies.

Two practical points make a big difference. First, resist the urge to enrich the soil. Wildflowers thrive on poor ground; adding compost or fertiliser simply encourages grass and nettles to swamp them. Second, choose single, open flowers rather than double blooms, which often carry little or no nectar and are difficult for insects to reach.

Leave a wild corner

The tidiest gardens are often the least welcoming to wildlife. A patch of long grass left uncut until late March gives caterpillars, beetles and frogs somewhere to overwinter, and provides shelter for lacewings and solitary bees.

If you can spare a square metre or two of nettles in a sunny spot, do. They are the larval food plant for peacock, small tortoiseshell and red admiral butterflies, and a nettle patch left alone is one of the most productive things you can offer. If nettles feel like a step too far, the same principle works with a small log pile, a bundle of hollow canes, or a heap of stones in a quiet corner.

When you do cut back, leave seedheads standing over winter. Teasel, sunflower, and knapweed heads feed goldfinches and other birds, and hollow stems make ready-made nesting tubes for solitary bees.

Provide water, all year round

Water is the element gardeners most often forget. Bees, butterflies and hoverflies all drink, and a shallow, gently sloping source is safest for them.

• Sink a shallow dish or old saucer at ground level and add a few pebbles or corks so insects can land and climb out.
• Keep a bird bath topped up, with a stone or two at the edge for smaller visitors.
• If you have room for a pond, give it at least one gently sloping side. Even a half-barrel pond will attract damselflies, and frogs will deal with your slugs.
• Refresh the water every few days in summer — stagnant water breeds mosquitoes rather than pollinators.

Keep the season going

A garden that flowers for three weeks in June is a lovely thing, but it will not sustain a colony of bumblebees. Aim for something in bloom from February to November, and plant in generous drifts rather than single specimens so insects can find the flowers easily.

Hoverflies, whose larvae eat aphids, favour flat, open flower heads: fennel, dill, yarrow, cow parsley and marjoram are all excellent. For late colour, sedum, asters, Japanese anemone and single dahlias will keep bees busy well into October. Courtyard growers can do the same in pots with lavender, thyme, oregano, rosemary and catmint — all of which shrug off dry conditions.

Small habits that add up

• Let some of the lawn grow long between March and September, mowing paths through it if you prefer a tidier look.
• Avoid pesticides and weedkillers. Even a single spray can remove the food a caterpillar needs.
• Cut back perennials in spring, not autumn, so seedheads and hollow stems remain available through winter.
• Deadhead some flowers but not all — a few self-sown seedlings of foxglove or nigella are free plants for next year.
• Grow a few herbs to flower. Bolt-on purpose for the vegetable patch: flowering rocket, coriander and chives are magnets for small bees.

None of this needs to be done at once. Choose one corner this weekend, plant a handful of wildflowers, set out a dish of water, and see what arrives. By midsummer you may find the garden has become a livelier, noisier and far more interesting place to sit.