| Gallery: Border plants |  |
We use plants from a variety of natural communities in our borders. Here are some which are especially useful to the wildlife gardener.
Pictures
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This Speedwell (Veronica sp.) is a garden variety. This is quite robust for a speedwell and a nice plant to have at the front of a border.
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Verbena bonariensis is quite a fashionable plant and very popular with wildlife gardeners because of the attraction it holds for many insects, including butterflies. Despite being quite a large plant, it has quite an open habit and can be grown in front of other plants without shading them too much. This picture shows a detail of one of the smallish flower-clusters.
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Goatsbeard (Tragopogon pratensis) in fruit. These spectacular 'clocks' almost reach the size of a tennis ball and are responsible for the common name.
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Goatsbeard (Tragopogon pratensis) in flower. The flowers of this species only open in the morning, giving the plant another of its vernacular names: 'Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon'.
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Goatsbeard (Tragopogon pratensis) growing in the garden. The plant can be quite easily grown from collected seed.
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Red campion (Silene dioica). One of our most abundant and, surely, prettiest native flowers. It will grow well in a variety of situations.
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Red campion (Silene dioica) is quite an early flowerer, providing the garden with a good early show in May, but it also goes on flowering into late summer.
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Ice-plant (Sedum spectabile) is a classic butterfly plant, attracting many species of colourful garden butterflies in late summer when it flowers. Must be grown in a sunny, well-drained, situation.
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This scabious is a non-native variety from a garden centre which, nevertheless, proved very attractive to many native insects (particularly hoverflies). It also has an extremely long flowering season - going right through the summer.
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This ornamental poppy (Papaver sp.) is a colourful addition to any border, though the flowers (like most poppies) are very short-lived.
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A very beautiful native, ragged robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi) is perfect for planting in a damp areas in the garden.
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Lupins (Lupinus sp.) are a very popular cottage garden plant and, like a lot of cottage garden plants, are excellent for wildlife too. In my garden, common carder bees (Bombus pascuorum) love to visit the flowers.
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An attractive early-flowering annual, honesty (Lunaria annua) is an important nectar source for early foraging insects.
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Spotted dead-nettle (Lamium maculatum) is an attractive relative of our own native dead-nettles. This garden plant is also commonly found naturalised in country lanes etc.
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The dead-nettles get their name because despite the similarity of their foliage to stinging nettles (Urtica sp.) they do not sting. The white-dead nettle is a favourite native of mine and very attractive to native insects too.
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Sunflowers (Helianthus annuus) come in a range of sizes for the garden from relatively short to very tall (like these) and a variety of colours. Not only are their flowers attractive to insects such as hoverflies, but when fruiting, their attractive seed-heads are irresistible to birds like finches.
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A large range of geraniums (cranesbills) are available for the garden and most of them are very attractive to insects like hoverflies.
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Globe-thisles (Echinops sp.), are very pretty perennials that attract a good number of insects. They are nice architectural plants too.
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The architecturally beautiful teasle (Dipsacus fullonum) not only attracts insects when in flower, but birds like goldfinches (Carduelis carduelis) that can extract the tiny seeds when in fruit (as here).
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When teasles (Dipsacus fullonum) flower, a band (or sometimes two bands) of florets opens and then dies together, as the adjacent florets start to flower - giving the impression that the band of flowers moves along the flowering head like a Mexican wave.
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Crocuses (Crocus sp. are valuable early blooming flowers, providing food for many early insects.
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The perennial corn-flower (Centaurea montana) is like a larger perennial version of our own native corn-flower (Centaurea cyanus). It's a useful border flower in the wildlife garden.
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Not to be confused with the native dandelion-like plant with the same common name, the garden plant, goatsbeard (Aruncus dioica) is a statuesque plant which produces relatively short-lived, but nonetheless spectacular, plumes of tiny white flowers in early June, which are irresistible to many bees and flies.
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Allium giganteum is a spectacular flowering member of the onion family. Not only is it beautiful and strong architecturally, but many insects are attracted to the large flowering heads.
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Also called 'Jack-by-the-hedge' because of its strong association with hedgerows, garlic mustard is a very important native plant for many insects. It is a food-plant for some of the white butterflies; e.g. the orange tip (Anthocharis cardamines).
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