Gardens are becoming more and more important for wildlife, especially bees, butterflies and other insects. Butterflies, caterpillars and insects need flowers and leaves for food. Bees need to collect lots of pollen and nectar from flowers to make honey.
If you have even a tiny patch of garden, a window ledge or space for a pot, you can grow some lovely flowers this Spring, and help to make a real difference to your local creatures.
Here are 12 plants that can be easily grown from seed. They all produce brightly coloured, scented flowers which insects love – and so will you!
Try to get the simpler single flowered, often old fashioned varieties and check that they are scented – some cultivated flowers look lovely but have no scent, and ‘double’ flowered varieties can be too complicated for insects to get into.
Most of these flowers can be sown straight into prepared soil in the garden once all danger of frost has gone—check the packet for details.
Holly Blue (Celastrina argiolus)
Flowers for bees and butterflies:
- Wall-Flowers.
- Forget-Me-Not.
- Sweet Pea.
- Cornflower.
- Snapdragons.
- Candy Tuft.
- Ox-eye Daisy.
- Marigold.
- Nasturtiums.
- Borage.
- Thyme.
- Sunflowers – after the flowers die, leave the seed heads out for the birds.