How to attract more bees and butterflies

My favourite thing about my garden (during spring and summer) is by far the butterflies, bees, and other insects flying around. Since I spend a lot of time outdoors, I love to encourage as much wildlife as I can as it gives me something to watch when I take breaks! If you’re like me and want to have more of these beautiful bugs, keep reading to find out how I attract them.

 

 

Bee hotel: 

Bee hotels provide shelter and allow the declining population somewhere to stay. Bees also don’t like to travel great distances, so adding a pit-stop will encourage them to visit more often! It also provides a home for any solitary bees.

Buy some here:

Bee nester tin, £8.95 

Wooden insect hotel, £12.49 

Build a bee hotel, £12.99 

Bee/bug house with clear tubes, £25

Planting native wildflowers:

Native species are important for the ecosystem, so planting native flowers will attract more and hopefully raise their numbers. Plants from garden centres could also be bred and in the process, they can lose their scent, pollen or nectar.

Buy some here:

Plantable seed paper confetti, £0.75 

Seed shaker for bees and butterflies, £2.50

Wildflower seed mix, £9.29 

Seed mix for wildlife, £3.99

Grow late flowering plants:

Late flowering plants are helpful to feed the last few pollinators wandering about. Here are a few ideas:

• Trials triumph
• Agastache 'Blue Fortune'
• Aster × frikartii 'Mönch'
• Chrysanthemum 'Mei-Kyō'
• Japanese anemone 

Add a ‘bee and butterfly bath’:

A shallow dish with fresh water is ideal for bees and butterflies. Bees can’t fly if their wings are wet, so make sure the water is shallow enough. You can see in the above photo, some fruit has been added for butterflies.

Buy some here:

The Beebar 3D Printed Bee Feeder, £9.09 

Bee and Butterfly bath, £19.95

Copper bee bath, £26

Keep plants closer together:

As noted in the bee hotel point, bees don’t like to travel around so keeping a nice variety will give them what they want and make it easier to find you.

 

Avoid using pesticides:

Pesticides have the potential to poison bees and butterflies. Alternatively you could try companion planting or encouraging the predators of the pests you want to avoid.

• Companion planting - growing plants together that have a mutual benefit, for example adding extra nutrients into the soil or deterring certain pests. Companion planting is observed but not scientifically proven. For example, lavender repels pests and attracts butterflies and bees
• Encourage predators example - ladybirds are often used to eat aphids on plants. Encourage ladybirds with dill, coriander, fennel, and many more plants.

I hope this post helps to you encourage more bees and butterflies into your garden. Let me know what particular ones you can find!

 

----> Thank you for taking the time to read my blog, Nate.

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