Plants to attract wildlife, particularly butterflies and bees

[CruCru]

We are in the Isle of Wight and have a fairly clay y soil. There is lots of light and usually a bit of rain every day.

I need to plant some hedges but also want to put in a wild bit in the garden to encourage wildlife.

Please let me know if you have any recommendations.

At the moment we have Holme Oak making part of a hedge.

I'll have a think, but at the moment in our garden lavender, budleiah, cotoneaster, and hibiscus when it flowers are always popular. We also have wild bits with nettles and brambles and we garden on clay.

Can you put in a small pond into your wildlife bit? You don't need anything expensive - pond liner and soft sand and a lot of digging. Within a year or two you'll find wildlife moving in.

i can't spell it but budeliah? it grows up and out fast giving you good screening and the butterflies love it. how do you spell it please anyone? if you plant that and a lilac tree fairly close you can pretty speedily get a faux hedge going and both attract a lot of insects when in flower. both need a lot of pruning back each year though if you want to keep them under control.

i wish i knew what the bush/tree i have that is constantly swarmed with bees. it was here when i moved in (gets covered in berries/small rosehip like hard ones for part of the year) and whilst there's not a hive in it as far as i can see the bees spend all day swarming around it.

i've let the end of my garden run a bit wild this year and that in itself (long grasses of various kinds with some wildflowers in there) seems to have attracted a lot more life.

and yes yes to a pond - i desperately want one but am allergic to digging you can go to a proper old natural pond and take a bucket of water from it and apparently adding that to your pond will be enough to introduce all kinds of plants and life.

Ah lovely, thanks.

Nepeta - cat-mint - is also a magnet for bees. We have a bush and it's always humming with activity in summer. It gets very leggy but you can just cut it all back, it re-grows speedily.

And yes, buddleia is THE shrub for attracting butterflies.

buddleia - is that the right spelling? i can never spell the damn thing.

yes mint is lovely and it was just growing within areas of my garden that had gone over to long grass when i moved in. even now sometimes when i am mowing i'll get a big whoosh of the lovely smell as i go over a forgotten patch that has ambled back to the surface.

lavender is lovely but seems hard to get right and not just end up really woody with little flower. would it be better in a pot anyone?

oh and broom - that provides good screening pretty quickly and attracts a lot when in flower. i have yellow and recently a batch of self seeded red is coming through. thank you birds

You could grow some honeysuckle through the hedge.

Some good plants here
www.complete-gardens.co.uk/online/online-gardening-plant-solutions-category.php?cat=16
and here
www.complete-gardens.co.uk/online/online-gardening-plant-solutions-category.php?cat=25

You can get lots of different colours for budleia too, pinks, whites & little orange sphere shaped blooms. The purples are nice too though.

does anyone know what that white flowering shrub that grows low to the ground is called? it has a really light silvery green leaf and you often see it along the edges of garden paths. apparently it's a nightmare as it spreads but i think it's pretty and it attracts a lot in my sister's garden. sorry i'm not much use really, just interested in this myself. i don't really 'get' immaculate, neat gardens (not least because mine's huge and there isn't a chance in hell i could achieve it) but i like big bushes and plants that just look after themselves and create little areas of screening and changing shapes and colour throughout the year and i do like that the bees and butterflies and birds seem to love my garden.

Foxgloves
Hardy geraniums
Toadflax
Nepetas (catmint)
Achilleas
Monarda
Thyme
Lavender
Hoenysuckles

We have all of the above in different varieties and our garden is buzzing!

HOney can you post a pic on here?

of the shrub/tree thing in my garden or the white plant i was asking about?

Most popular for bees in my garden are :

Buddleja
Lavender
Giant purple poppies

Most popular for bees in my garden are thyme and chives, to the extent that if I have plants I want pollinated, I put them amidst the thyme and chives as I know that bees will be a-buzzing there all day long.

I have a climbing hydrangea on two walls with white flowers that is a real bee magnet.

Honey, is that low-growing plant this by any chance - pachysandra terminalis? It comes in a silver-leaf variety too.

Either Honey.

The favourite in our garden is a wild sage. It's not tasty but it produces long purple flowers all summer long and the bees love it. They also like our herbs - we've got lavender and chives and yarrow that they particularly like (bet it makes good honey). Another vote for cotoneaster, both my parent's (in the north of Scotland) and mine (in NE England) are covered in butterflies and bees.

Just to say the Buddleia is a bit of a weed so you need to keep it in check. It also apparently steals the butterflies away from other native species. Not sure how true that is though.

more flowers and smaller leaves i think halsall. haven't got a pic of it. will get a pick of the bush/tree thing panna - would be interested to know what it is.

I only really plant stuff that bees and butterflies like. I have buddiea, lavender, sage, lupins, cranesbill geraniums, scabious, aquilegia, sedum that sort of thing. Artichokes left to flower are always quite popular too.

Iberis perhaps Honey for the small plant
www.finegardening.com/evergreen-candytuft-iberis-sempervirens