Planting for Biodiversity
This article includes suggestions for plants to try growing if you want to encourage pollinators in your garden or window box.
Top tips to get your balcony buzzing
Grow a range of plants for year-round flowering
Avoid plants with double or multi-petalled flowers
Do not use pesticides on plants in flower, as they can poison pollinators
If you have room, provide nest sites for solitary bees
Suggested plants for year-round flowering
Spring
Crocus
Hellebores
Miniature daffodils
Snowdrops
Summer
Allium (ornamental onion)
Cornflowers
Cosmos
Gaura
Hardy geraniums
Lavender
Marigold
Nemesia
Russian sage (Perovskia)
Salvias
Spotted dead nettle (Lamium maculatum)
Verbena bonariensis
Autumn
Asters (Michaelmas daisy)
Dahlias (single flowered)
Japanese anemone
Sedum
Winter
Clematis cirrhosa
Crocus (winter-flowering types)
Winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis)
Common snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis)
Plants to improve air quality
Silverbush (Convolvulus cneorum)
Hebe “Mrs Winder”
Heuchera villosa
Lavender
Stachys byzantina (Lambs ears - not all types of flower)
Lamb’s ear Stachys byzantina | © RHS