Just as the bluebells finish flowering in our woodlands, the rose-red blooms of red campion start to brighten up the woodland floor. Look for this pretty plant in hedges and roadsides, too.

Often seen carpeting the floor of ancient woodlands, Dog's mercury can quickly colonise, its fresh green leaves shading out rarer plants. It is also very poisonous.

Pellitory-of-the-wall is a small to medium-sized herb that frequently grows from cracks in old stone walls, pavements, cliffs and banks, and churches and ruins.

Sea potatoes may have a funny name, but they are perfectly adapted for life in the sand. They are a type of sea urchin that live in a burrow in the sand, feeding on dead animals and plants using…

A low-growing herb of chalk and limestone grassland, Salad burnet lives up to its name - it is a popular addition to salads and smells of cucumber when crushed!

As its name suggests, Meadowsweet is a sweet-smelling flower of damp meadows, ditches and riverbanks. Look for frothy clusters of cream flowers on tall stems.

The brown, oval, spiky seed heads of the teasel are a familiar sight in all kinds of habitats, from grassland to waste ground. They are visited by goldfinches and other birds, so make good garden…

A tall plant, purple-loosestrife can form dense stands of bright purple flower spikes in wet habitats like reedbeds, fens and marshes.

The appearance of semi-circular holes in the leaves of your garden plants is a sure sign that the patchwork leaf-cutter bee has been at work. It is one of a number of leaf-cutter bee species…

Look out for the small, yellow flowers of Celery-leaved buttercup in wet meadows and at the edges of ponds and ditches. It flowers from May to September.

Ivy is one of our most familiar plants, seen climbing up trees, walls, and along the ground, almost anywhere. It is a great provider of food and shelter for all kinds of animals, from butterflies…