How to attract butterflies to your garden
Provide food for caterpillars and choose nectar-rich plants for butterflies and you’ll have a colourful, fluttering display in your garden for many months.
Provide food for caterpillars and choose nectar-rich plants for butterflies and you’ll have a colourful, fluttering display in your garden for many months.
Despite its name, Common knotgrass is not a grass, but is actually related to the docks. It has wiry stems that grow along the ground, and is a weed of waste ground, gardens and arable fields.
Timothy is a grass of meadows, arable land, waste ground and roadside verges. It is also cultivated as fodder for livestock. Look for slender stems and long, cylindrical flower spikes in summer.…
A notoriously poisonous plant, hemlock produces umbrella-like clusters of white flowers in summer. It can be found in damp places, such as ditches, riverbanks and waste ground.
As its name suggests, the large skipper is bigger than the similar-looking small skipper! It can be seen in summer, resting on the long grass of grasslands, woodlands, verges and sand dunes.
Soft brome is a tall, annual grass of roadside verges, waste ground and meadows, and is a 'weed' of arable land. It has long, grey-green leaves and loosely clustered flower spikes.
A beautifully scented plant, the arching stems and bell-shaped flowers of Lily-of-the-valley can be seen in many woodlands. Despite its delicate appearance, this plant is highly toxic.
Wood melick is a slender, drooping grass that grows in dense patches in ancient woodlands and along shady banks. It has nodding flower heads, with brown, egg-shaped spikelets that contain the…
Most arable fields are large, featureless monocultures devoid of wildlife, but here and there are smaller fields and tucked away corners that are farmed less intensively, or are managed…
A good luck charm for travellers, Germander speedwell can be seen along roadsides, grassy lanes and hedgerows. Look for clumps of bright blue flowers.
A wildlife pond is one of the single best features for attracting new wildlife to the garden.
A climbing plant of woodlands, hedgerows, riverbanks and gardens, Hedge bindweed can become a pest in some places. It has large, trumpet-shaped, white flowers and arrow-shaped leaves.