attracting insects, bees and butterflies

[hawthorns]

does anyone have any ideas on how to attract ladybirds, hoverflies, bees, lacewings and butterflies into my garden. its a new garden and i want to use flowers to get the goodies in to eat the badies to protect my veg. i have built some wooden boxes for pot marigold and poached egg plants to start with but are there anymore flowers to try.

[Shortie]

Hi Hawthorns, I've moved your thread to our new Wildlife Gardneing board as I expect you'll get lots more answers on here

Good ways to start introducing inects etc is to have native flowers and a water source, but I'm sure there will be plenty more advice coming along soon

[lainey lou]

Hi Hawthorns! The ladybirds in my garden last year went wild for my parsley, it was lovely watching them!
I would suggest trying to stick to native british flowers eg devilsbit scabious and field scabious for bees and butterflys, corn mint, foxgloves (although remember they are poisionous), mallow, oxeye daisy for mason bees and hoverflies, chives, violets, wild thyme etc etc... I could go mad for this! I,m hoping to develop a little wildlife corner in the lottie this year and just can't wait to get started!

[smallblueplanet]

I found a link here to some more info

How to make a garden insect friendly

Here's an interesting point

* Avoid planting hybrid cultivars, especially those with double flowers, which are often sterile, and therefore useless to nectar and pollen feeders.

This is an interesting link, I guess if you have bats in your garden then you have insects too?

Bat-friendly gardening

Try to include some of the following:

* Flowers that vary not only in colour and fragrance, but also in shape.
* Pale flowers that are more easily seen in poor light, so attracting insects at dusk.
* Single flowers, which tend to produce more nectar than double varieties.
* Flowers with insect-friendly landing platforms and short florets, like those in the daisy or carrot families.

[Madasafish]

For butterflies, you cannot beat buddleia.
We have about 10 bushes and we get butterflies from all over... They also smell nice. We have red, white, blue, yellow so lots of colour as well.

Prune once a year, ignore rest of time.

[Becca]

for bees, honeysuckle is great if you have the room, I have an old unknown variety which takes over my garden every year but I love anyway as it is always swarming with bees and smells divine, especially in early evening. It also seems to provide hibernation cover for loads of ladybirds too as mine seems to be effectively evergreen. It also has autumn berries which I suspect would attract lots of birds if there weren't 7 cats in the vicinity (only 2 mine but they all pop in). For hoverflies, potentilla (I think that's how it's spelt) seems to be a favourite from observation or was in my garden till i ill advisedly pruned it and it died

[Sue]

The humble nasturtium seems to be a great favourite, I don't have much room for it on my allotment but then thought of letting it grow all over the compost heaps full of couch grass rotting down. I grew them in fiber pots then scooped out a hole, filled in with nice new compost and well-rotten manure then planted them in various spots on the heaps. Result flowers everywhere, eyesore covered up for a while and bees all over.

I've got verbena bonariensis on the go for this year as I was advised by a fellow grape this was a great attractant and a buddlea planted last year so should be good this summer. I'm planted poached egg plants everywhere as I love to see the great humming clouds of bees and hoverflies attracted to this.

What I do need to do is get more early flowers in, when it's warm the bees come out and there's not much for them. They do seem to love crocus so will be putting in more of these.

And finally comfrey does attract them, so a good all rounder.

Sue

[smallblueplanet]

...I've got verbena bonariensis on the go for this year as I was advised by a fellow grape this was a great attractant .....
And finally comfrey does attract them, so a good all rounder.

Now Sue, don't go blaming some poor Grape...

VB is also very pretty and will flower over a long period. Stick with single flower varieties, not 'fancy' doubles! Oh and if you're looking for an alternate to comfrey, then borage does a great job as an attractant and has its other (Pimms) uses!

[Graham S]

Bee/hoverfly magnets

Plants I've been successful with are:
Phacelia tanacetifolia (Scorpion weed), Borage, Verbena bonariensis, buddleia (esp.white), Globe thistle (Echinops), Echinacea. Cardoon (although grows to 6ft plus), rosemary, lavender, helenium sp.
hope this helps
cheers
Graham

[whigger]

Insects like scented plants and flowers. I have also found in the past that fennel is hugely attractive to hoverflies. Also if you are using insect boxes try and make sure they are in a sunny position and the entrance is facing south or south west.

[pigletwillie]

As well as most off the above, our favourite "attractors" are poached agg plant and nasturtium. We plant them alongside crops prone to infestations such as broad beans as sacrificial plants as they really are aphid magnets. The aphids then draw in the ladybirds, lacewings and the like in huge numbers.

[Maf]

Artichokes

Globe for Bees
Jerusalem for hovery flys

[Sue]

Smallblueplanet
It was you!!! Well, on your advice I've got 6 little baby VB's nestling in my cold frame and phew, the right sort.
And yes borage, lady at the farmer's market has that so will get some from her

All I need to do is find a spare corner to grow some veg....
Sue

[smallblueplanet]

...And yes borage, lady at the farmer's market has that so will get some from her...

Once you've got it, it should happily self-seed. Don't forget the Pimms!

[bendm]

Insects like scented plants and flowers. I have also found in the past that fennel is hugely attractive to hoverflies. Also if you are using insect boxes try and make sure they are in a sunny position and the entrance is facing south or south west.

I agree,Fennel is great.Grow florence fennel,you seem to get about 2 weeks when it is perfect for eating(delicious)and then it bolts and flowers,but the insects love it.Also,the dried stems can be used for insect shelters.