Bee and butterfly gardening

A garden humming with bees and shimmering with brilliantly-coloured butterflies is a garden full of life and beauty, with the insects adding another dimension to your planting and giving you yet another reason to enjoy your garden.

By encouraging bees, butterflies and other pollinating insects into your garden you're doing the planet a favour as well as your plants. Populations of pollinators have been plummeting, a combination of disease, climate change and the lack of suitable pollen-rich flowers. But since their activities are responsible for around a third of the food we eat, helping them makes good sense all round.

You'll find all you need in our garden centre to make your plot a haven for bees and butterflies: here are some of the features you can include for them when you're planning your garden in East Lothian.

Attracting bees:

• Include water: Like all creatures, bees need to drink. 
• Hang up a bug hotel: We stock a with range of housing designed with bees and  other beneficial insects in mind.
• Plant bee-friendly plants: Bees love plants with simple, open flowers so they can get at the nectar easily. Good choices include Clematis, Hollyhocks, Geraniums and Lavender.

Attracting butterflies:

• Make a sunbathing platform: Butterflies adore a warm sunny spot, so give them somewhere to sunbathe by placing a wide flat stone in a sunny spot in your garden to absorb heat for them to enjoy.
• Leave caterpillar-friendly areas: Butterflies are only half the story, their caterpillars need catering for, too. A patch of nettles is perfect caterpillar food and might help keep them away from the plants you don't want them near!
• Butterfly-friendly plants: The more nectar-rich your plants, the happier your butterflies. They'll flock to Buddleja, Sedum, Scabious, Michaelmas daisies and Aubretia – so plant plenty in your garden that'll span the relevant months.