Planting for pollinators in your garden: What can you do to help pollinators and also make your garden beautiful
How to create a wildflower meadow in your garden:
- Start in the winter
- Remove an area of turf – Small areas can be done with a spade. Turf cutter can be used for large areas
- Add a wildflower seed mix – Please use seed truly native to UK from companies like Naturscape, John Chambers, Landlife
- Watch the beautiful flowers grow in the summer
- Do not mow until at least the end of September to allow the seeds to drop
- Cut and remove the flowers to ensure that the meadow establishes – native wildflowers prefer low nutrient soils and if the cut flowers are left soil nutrient levels can increase.
Please consider also doing No Mow May to allow little flowers to establish in your lawn during that month.
Please consider setting aside at least 20% of your garden to wildlife, by leaving the area to go wild. By mowing the rest of the garden, it shows that the area is intentionally wild (and not just left!). This action will help support pollinators and you will see a greater range of bees and butterflies visiting your garden.
Please plant pollinator loving flowers such as: Foxglove, Lavender, Borage, Thyme, Honeysuckle and Budlier.
If using compost, only purchase peat free compost. When peat is dug up, it destroys the natural peatlands and also causes large volumes of greenhouse gas to be released into the air, contributing to climate change. We need to leave the peat in the ground, so only buy peat free compost!
Please avoid flowers that are called double flowers. Gardener’s world explains: “Most double flowers are of little use, as they have so many petals the bees can’t get to the central part of the flower, where the nectar and pollen are found. For more information on what flowers are good for bees at each month of the spring to autumn see BBC Gardeners World
Seed an area with wildflower seeds. This can be created by injecting wildflower plug plants into the lawns or stripping the existing grass and seeding with an appropriate wildflower seed mix. Please use native seed, truly native to UK seed from companies like Naturscape, John Chambers, Landlife otherwise we damage our native plants.