How to attract moths and bats to your garden
Plant flowers that release their scent in the evening to attract moths and, ultimately, bats looking for an insect-meal into your garden.
Plant flowers that release their scent in the evening to attract moths and, ultimately, bats looking for an insect-meal into your garden.
A scrambling plant, Bush vetch has lilac-blue flowers. It is a member of the pea family and can be seen along woodland edges and roadside verges, and on scrubland and grassland.
In spring and summer, look out for 'cuckoo-spit' - the frothy mass of bubbles that appears on plant stems everywhere. This is actually the protective covering for the nymphs of the tiny…
Dyer's greenweed is a classic plant of hay meadows, heaths and open woodlands. It has upright stems with loose clusters of bright yellow, pea-like flowers in summer.
Large scale drainage in the UK has seen a massive reduction in the range of this sensitive aquatic plant which now only occurs in around 50 sites in England.
A short, but pretty plant of unimproved grasslands, the Green-winged orchid gets its name from the green veins in the 'hood' of its flowers. Look for it in May and June.
The stinging nettle is a familiar and common plant, often firmly rooted in our memories after our first, hands-on experience - a prickling irritation that's not forgotten easily!
The soft, downy look of Yorkshire-fog makes it an attractive plant, even if it is considered a weed of cultivated land! It is also attractive to the caterpillars of the Small Skipper butterfly as…
The pretty-in-purple Pasqueflower is now a rare plant in the UK, restricted to just a few chalk and limestone grasslands. Steeped in legend, it flowers at Easter, so is known as the 'anemone…
Pepper saxifrage is a classic plant of unimproved hay meadows and roadside verges. It's upright, branching stems carry umbrella-like clusters of creamy-yellow, flowers in summer.
The true fox-sedge is a rare and threatened plant in the UK. It relies on lowland floodplain meadows and damp habitats, which are rapidly disappearing. Look for reddish-brown flowers in summer.…
A prickly, tall plant, the Small teasel is closely related to the Common teasel, but has much smaller, more rounded flower heads. It prefers damp, open woodlands.