How to build a pond
A wildlife pond is one of the single best features for attracting new wildlife to the garden.
Water vole by Terry Whittaker/2020VISION
A wildlife pond is one of the single best features for attracting new wildlife to the garden.
The striking black-and-white checks of the marbled white are unmistakeable. Watch out for it alighting on purple flowers, such as field scabious, on chalk and limestone grasslands and along…
A spring delight, the wood anemone grows in dappled shade in ancient woodlands. Traditional management, such as coppicing, can help such flowers by opening up the woodland floor to sunlight.
Cross-leaved heath is a type of heather that likes bogs, heathland and moorland. It has distinctive pink, bell-shaped flowers that attract all kinds of nectar-loving insects.
Traditionally a coastal species, Lesser sea-spurrey has spread inland, taking advantage of the winter-salting of our roads. Its pink-and-white flowers bloom in summer.
Broom is a large shrub of heaths, open woodlands and coastal habitats. Like gorse, it has bright yellow flowers, but it doesn't have any spines and smells of vanilla.
A scrambling 'weed' of waste ground, fields and gardens, Common fumitory can be found on dry and disturbed soils. Its pink flowers appear over spring and summer.
A sure sign that spring has arrived, the Cuckooflower blooms from April. Look out for its delicate, pale pink flowers in damp meadows and ditches, and on riverbanks.
Yellow corydalis is a familiar 'weed' of gardens, walls and rocky places. It is a garden escapee in the UK, so is not a native plant. Try choosing natives for your garden to prevent…
Bell heather is our most familiar heather. In summer, it carpets our heaths, woods and coasts with purple-pink flowers that attract all kinds of nectar-loving insects.
Look for the star-like, feathery, white flowers of Bogbean in ponds, fens, bogs and marshes. It is so-named because its leaves look like those of broad beans.
The wayfaring-tree is a small tree of hedgerows, woods, scrub and downland. It displays creamy-white flowers in spring and red berries in autumn, which ripen to black and are very poisonous.