www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

It's not a great time for butterflies at the moment (although yesterday I saw a peacock still in beautiful condition despite the horrible weather we've been having in Wales recently) but it may be time to think about our gardens for next year. I am not a very keen gardener and tend to leave things to grow but try to keep trees and hedges under control once a year (which we normally do in November / December).
The advantage of not tidying your garden on a regular basis I notice this last year, is that it attracts a diversity of wildlife. I saw females holly blues laying eggs on the buds of ivy flowers, 2 speckled woods were patrolling the back of my garage, my buddleia attracts butterflies (in one sunny days I counted 5 painted ladies, 8 red admirals, 4 small tortoise shells, and several white butterflies, 3 peacocks and one humming bird hawkmoth. Carterpillars are feeding on the nettles (never seen them but leaves are being eaten somehow). Bumble bees have started to nest in the garden, I have frogs leaving next to the garage where I have not cut the grass and hedgehogs as well at the bottom of my garden where I leave the branches of cut trees to decompose, which should also attract I hope beetles soon.... All these little things we can do to attract wildlife just on our doorsteps!

Sallow is a fantastic plant for butterflies emerging from hibernation. It flowers very early in the year and immediately attracts hordes of insects, including bees, which have had a hard time recently. My sallow here in Switzerland is a large tortoiseshell magnet, which may seem irrelevant in England now but might not in the future - this insect has had a great revival on the continent and many were seen in England in in 2007.

Obviously, it is too late to plant sallows for next spring, but I would encourage gardeners to think about this plant for future years.

Guy

Andrew George's new book on butterfly gardening is well worth a look, as it is full of ideas for attracting various butterflies.

Sallow attracts so many bumblebees in the spring that sometimes the trees appear to be making a low buzzing noise, which can be heard from quite some distance.

Another excellent bumblebee plant is viper's bugloss, (Echium).