[tinshed]

Hello Everyone

Advice please.

The top third of my allotment is deep, heavy clay that gets very waterlogged and boggy in the Winter and early Spring and never really dries out beneath the surface.  It gets three quarters sun.  I'm trying to make it into a wildlife area and have already put in a pond, some bog plants and a big comfrey patch.  I've now got an area of about 8 ft square where I'd like to put some shrubs that will attract bees and butterflies.  Any ideas?

Looking forward to your suggestions.........

[WG.]

Bees love cotoneaster.  Birds love the berries.

[wellingtons]

... it is a perennial.  Try fennel.  It's like a bee and hoverfly theme park in mid summer.

[dawninspain]

Budelia is really easy to grow and attracts both bees and butterflies.

Dawn

[ytyynycefn]

I've been very busy sowing borage, tagetes, nasturtiums and all manner of bee attracting plants - on Saturday a swarm of bees landed on my fence and started setting up home!  Great, except the fence is on a public lane, and the local kids were poking the colony with sticks  :x , so we had to get a beekeeper to take them away  :cry:  

Had they landed a bit further into the plot, they'd have had a great home!

So be careful what you wish for  :shock:

[milkman]

In addition to the above:-
Ceanothus - has fantastic bright blue flowers which bees simply love.
Flowering currant, pyracantha, hebe and escallonia are also good too.
And/or how about a nicely scented rose.

[Oscar Too]

Mallow is good.

[corndolly]

I would go for Flowering Currant, the bees love it as it flowers early , Bumble Bees especially favour it in my garden and its easy to propagate.

Buddlea is loved by Butterflies especially Tortoiseshell ,they flower in high summer.

Around the bases you could plant perennials such as pink Geranium and Pinks ( Carnation family) both easy to propogate.

Also poached egg plant as the flowers attract Hoverflies very useful in your garden.

[yellowkid]

Butterflies love very much Echinacea Purpurea ,Rosemary and Fennel

[Ann]

We get lots of bees on the lavender plants can't help with butterflies as we never see them around the garden

[tinshed]

Thanks for all your suggestions.  I'm working out which ones are best for my heavy, boggy clay soil and will use them.

Keep watering!

[mandycharlie]

Ceaonanthus (sp) is gorgeous.

fantastic display of blue flowers which attracts huge amounts of bees.

they can grow quite large, so make sure you use it as backdrop planting.

[muntjac]

you wont go wrong with buddlia and it has 5 colours to play with including a yellow ball variety the  peacosk line up on my concrete path like spitfires on the runway .. oh and drop some water with a few spoonfuls of sugar in on the path for them and dont forgewt togo out after dark for the swallowtail hawk moth may pay you a visit