Specialist plants for bees, hoverflies and butterflies

Different pollinators have different needs. Honeybees are generalists and will work almost anything with accessible nectar. Bumblebees prefer tubular flowers where their long tongues give them an advantage — foxgloves, Salvia nemorosa, Stachys, Nepeta, penstemons. Solitary bees often specialise by plant family: some collect only from roses, others only from bellflowers.

Hoverflies are wildly underrated. They pollinate as effectively as bees, and their larvae devour aphids by the hundred. Adult hoverflies need flat, open flowers where nectar is easy to reach — they cannot probe. Fennel, angelica, Ammi majus, Daucus carota and any umbellifer will be crowded with them by June. Let a patch of parsley or coriander bolt and watch what arrives.

Butterflies need nectar as adults and specific larval food plants as caterpillars. Red admirals, peacocks, small tortoiseshells and commas all lay eggs on nettles. Brimstones need buckthorn. Orange-tips need honesty, garlic mustard or lady's smock. If you want butterflies to stay, you need some controlled mess — a clump of nettles in a sunny corner, a patch of long grass, seed-heads left standing through winter.

Night-flying moths visit pale, fragrant flowers after dusk. Nicotiana sylvestris, Hesperis matronalis, night-scented stock, and jasmine are moth magnets. Plant them near where you sit on summer evenings and you will see hawkmoths hovering like hummingbirds.