Native plants and why they matter more than you think

Native plants have co-evolved with British pollinators for ten thousand years. Many of our specialist solitary bees cannot use anything else. The garden bumblebee feeds almost exclusively on white dead-nettle and related labiates. The red mason bee prefers fruit blossom, hawthorn and bramble. If your garden is entirely exotics, some insects simply will not come.

That does not mean you must garden only with natives — a mix is ideal. But allocating even 30% of your planting to native wildflowers, shrubs and climbers makes a measurable difference. Hawthorn, blackthorn, dog rose, bramble, ivy, field scabious, knapweed, birdsfoot trefoil, viper's bugloss, red campion, ox-eye daisy — these are not scruffy afterthoughts. Many are beautiful, and they are irreplaceable to certain insects.

Wildflower seed mixes are popular but often disappointing. Annual mixes are dominated by cornflower and poppies, which look spectacular for six weeks then vanish. Perennial mixes establish slowly and need poor soil — if you sow them on enriched garden loam, docks and thistles will choke everything else. Better to plant individual wildflower plugs into mown grass in September or March, watering them in dry spells for the first summer.

If you have a lawn, let part of it grow long. Mow paths through it so it looks intentional. White clover, selfheal, birdsfoot trefoil and daisies will flower in the sward by the second year. A long-grass meadow with mown paths is one of the easiest, prettiest, most pollinator-rich things you can do.