Mario Bautista
The question many gardeners have been asking this year is, where are all the bees? The wet spring followed by a cool and grey June and July certainly didn’t help, but that was only part of a cascade of calamities causing a huge decrease in insects in general.
The scientific studies into insect decline due to habitat loss, use of pesticides, pollution (including from light and noise) and climate change make for grim reading. This year’s Big Butterfly Count, run annually by the charity Butterfly Conservation, recorded the lowest numbers in the survey’s 14-year history.
Bugs don’t grab the headlines like lions or polar bears, but they underpin functioning and healthy habitats and are essential for human survival. According to the charity Buglife, 84 per cent of crops grown in the European Union rely on insect pollination — not just by honey bees, but solitary bees, bumblebees, hoverflies, wasps, butterflies, moths and some beetles. The cost to replicate insect pollination worldwide would be staggering. Imagine having to pollinate the strawberries, raspberries and courgettes in your garden yourself because there were no insects.
Pollinators need our help and gardeners, blessed with our own patches of the planet, can make a difference, with streets of gardens acting as green corridors and mini nature reserves. The coming weeks, when the soil is warm and there’s autumn rain, herald a key planting time in the garden, so whatever the size of your outdoor space here are some tips to make it more welcoming for these creatures.
Ten ways to help pollinators
Clematis cirrhosa ‘Freckles’
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1. Maximise your planting areas
An abundance of planting is key to offering as many sources of pollen and nectar as possible, so minimise areas of hard landscaping and find room for plants wherever you can. Lift some paving slabs to create planting pockets, build raised beds around a patio, widen your garden borders by reducing the size of your lawn or add a green roof of wildflowers or sedums on top of a bin store, shed or garage.
Plant climbers so that they clothe walls and fences — the fragrant, tubular flowers of honeysuckle are a favourite with long-tongued bees and moths; climbing and rambling roses with single open flowers allow insects to access the pollen and nectar; while winter-flowering clematis, such as Clematis cirrhosa ‘Freckles’, will provide sustenance when little else is in bloom. The latter are from the Mediterranean, so they’re most suited to a mild garden, growing against a south-facing wall.
2. Extend the season
Give insects a boost before the cold weather arrives by plugging gaps in borders and replacing fading summer annuals in pots with perennials that are still blooming. Look for symphyotrichum (asters), hylotelephium, helenium and salvias. Evergreen shrubs that will draw in the pollinators with their autumn blooms include Fatsia japonica and Eleagnus x submacrophylla.
A bumblebee on honeysuckle flower
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3. Winter bloomers
If the weather is mild some bees will still be active during winter, so plants that flower then are important sources of food. Winter-flowering honeysuckle is a shrubby relative of the climbing honeysuckle and has tiny, white, perfumed flowers that buzz with bees on those sunny February days when spring doesn’t feel too far away. Other winter flowers to keep pollinators happy include hellebores (the single-flowered types), winter-flowering heathers and mahonias.
A peacock butterfly on a bluebell
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4. Plant spring bulbs
Between now and the end of autumn is prime bulb-planting time, but some spring-flowering bulbs are better for pollinators than others. The best ones include grape hyacinths, our native bluebell, Hyacinthoides non-scripta, and crocus, which can be planted into short grass for a carpet of spring colour.
The delightful snake’s head fritillary (Fritillaria meleagris), with its chequerboard, lantern-shaped flowers, is a magnet for bumblebees, and it’s one of the few bulbs that likes moist soil — it grows wild in the UK in water meadows — so if you have clay soil this is the bulb for you. I’ve planted it at the edge of a woodland-style border but it can be planted in drifts through sunnier borders or naturalised in patches of short grass — you’ll need to wait until the foliage has died back fully before mowing.
Sicilian honey garlic
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The globe-shaped clusters of starry flowers of alliums make the garden sing in May — and they’ll hum from the sound of bees dining out on them. Flowering a little bit later is Allium siculum, or Sicilian honey garlic, whose appearance is quite different, with its umbels of dangling, bell-shaped blooms that are cream and flushed with red. Bees go mad for it!
5. Early perennials
Pulmonaria bloom from late February into April and are a favourite with bees, especially the hairy-footed flower bee. It’s an easy groundcover plant for partial shade with lots of varieties including ‘Diana Clare’, which has pretty violet and pink flowers and silver-grey foliage, and the intense blue flowers of ‘Blue Ensign’.
Pulmonaria ‘Blue Ensign’
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Underplant deciduous shrubs and trees with primroses, whose pale yellow flowers will attract bee flies, long-tongued bees and early butterflies.
6. Find space for blossom
Spring-flowering shrubs and trees are especially important because they produce such a mass of pollen and nectar just as many insects are becoming active again. The flowers of fruit trees and soft fruit such as blackcurrants will please pollinators and you’ll be rewarded with a delicious harvest later in the year. While ornamentals won’t produce fruit, they can be just as good for pollinators. Options include Acacia dealbata (for coastal or mild, urban gardens), amelanchier, sorbus and flowering currants (ribes).
A holly blue butterfly lays eggs on a pyracantha
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7. Flowering hedges
Hawthorn, pyracantha and wild roses are often overlooked when it comes to hedges or screening in favour of more traditional boundary plants such as yew, beech or hornbeam, but these blooming plants are loved by a wide range of creatures, including pollinators such as bees, flies and moths. To keep the cost of creating a hedge down order bare root or root-balled hedging now for planting later in autumn.
8. Rethink garden lighting
Artificial light can disrupt the natural behaviour of wildlife: night-flying insects such as moths, for instance, can become disorientated and more prone to predation. However, some simple steps can minimise the impact. Fit sensors or timers to security lights so they only come on when necessary. Direct lighting where it’s needed, such as at an entrance or path, is preferable to lighting up the whole garden. Don’t light up wildlife hotspots such as trees, hedges and water features, and look for lights that are labelled as “warm” rather than “cool”, as the former attracts more insects. Remember to close curtains and blinds as the nights draw in to avoid insects being attracted to the glow inside.
A dead hedge makes a fine habitat for bugs
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9. Provide shelter
Leaves that fall on borders and the hollow stems of perennial seed heads are ideal places for creatures to hole up, so don’t be tempted to tidy up and cut back. Create log piles and the ultimate in bug habitats: a dead hedge. This is a really useful way of using woody prunings to create a home for a wide range of insects. Drive hardwood or metal stakes about 1.5 metres long into the ground to create two parallel lines. My dead hedge is about 50cm wide and about 1.5 metres long, but you could change the dimensions to fit your space. Then fill between the stakes with twigs and branches. Over time these will rot down but you can keep placing more on the top to maintain the structure.
10. Go pesticide-free
Avoid using pesticides and weedkillers unless absolutely necessary, and when buying plants and bulbs check to see if they have been treated with chemicals. There are an increasing number of plant nurseries that grow their stock naturally: the RHS website has a list of organic nurseries, although it’s not comprehensive.
