THE BEST PLANTS FOR POLLINATORS

It’s both easy and attractive to have plants growing all year that will attract pollinators and especially honey bees. Insects are not only fascinating, but as pollinators they’re an essential link in the food chain.

When choosing plants for pollination, you must consider how accessible the nectar is. Any plant that is open and simple, such as members of the daisy family, or any set on a bobble, such as scabious, and all members of the thistle family, are going to attract honey bees. Bumble bees have longer tongues so are better adapted for plants with a funnel shape, such as foxgloves.

The best flowers for bees and other pollinators such as butterflies are mallow, scabious, cornflowers, wild clary (Salvia verbenaca), hollyhocks, evening primroses, geums, hardy geraniums, asters, agastache, campanulas, cosmos and alliums. In terms of shrubs, try mahonia, cotoneaster, ceanothus, lilac, buddleia and shrub roses.

And if you have space, plant fruit trees, hawthorns, hazels, chestnuts, ornamental cherries and blackthorns.

A garden filled with birds will have fantastic natural pest control as well as being full of life and song – so the good birds do far outweighs any problems they create. A typical suburban street is an ideal environment for song birds and a wellstocked garden with a few trees and plenty of shrubs can support a far higher density of song birds than a wood. In fact, most gardens are more wildlife-friendly than the average field.

That said, there are a few things in particular you can do to encourage birds, and some things to avoid lest they discourage or harm them.

To start with, birds must have cover. This will provide food, nesting places, singing posts and protection from bad weather and predators. It’s astonishing how much birdlife will be added to a small garden by simply planting some deciduous hedging and deciduous and evergreen shrubs. Shrubs with berries will also supply food – try cotoneaster, pyracantha, cherry laurel, holly, elder, hawthorn, ivy and guelder rose. If you have room for a tree or two, so much the better. Put up nesting boxes too.

As well as the berries, birds will want to feed on insects and seeds, so don’t be too tidy – leave some cover for insects and make stacks of

A red-tailed bumble bee feeding on a cornflower