Like any living thing, insects need shelter from the elements, food and drink. In your garden, that tends to mean some sort of accommodation – from a log pile to a bug hotel – as well as plenty of flowering plants for all seasons and a water feature, the more shaded and overgrown the better! I’d like to look at these in turn and include a few links to advice elsewhere on the Cumbria Wildlife Trust website as there are plenty of ideas and inspiration online.

Pollinator populations

Meadow mixes and planted roofs are great ways to introduce a bit of wild into your garden but they need work in terms of preparation, planting and maintenance if they’re going to maximise the support for insect populations in your garden and look good too.

One of the most cost-effective ways of creating such a planting scheme on a large scale is to use seed mixes. This isn’t just about combining lots of different plants in one scheme. A good mix should also include succession flowering so that you have interest from May through to the first frosts.

There are lots of companies offering seed mixes nowadays but I’ve always been particularly fond of Pictorial Meadows. The company was conceived by Professor Nigel Dunnett when he was a lecturer in the Landscape Institute of Sheffield University and it is renowned for its work in the London 2012 Olympic Park and, more recently, several Greening Grey Britain projects.

Annual mixes, sown every year, are the most popular type. They are available in a range of colour themes and for a variety of soils and aspects but a majority prefer largely sunny, open and well-drained situations. I worked with a friend, Ali, on aspects of her Penrith garden and, as she was a volunteer Games Maker in London for 2012, she loves having her own little bit of the Olympic Park at home. Mind you, she didn’t underestimate the work involved in good soil preparation before initial planting and, as she is using annual mixes, there’s a need to dig the ground over thoroughly every year.

Perennial mixes are also available and there are choices of mixes for different soils and situations. In Cumbria, these are usually sown in the spring, as the ground begins to warm, and they can take a couple of years to become established. During that time, you might need to remove a few of the more “thuggish” weeds such as dandelions and dock leaves. I recommend pulling these out carefully and then filling the gaps with bulbs. It is worth this effort as, once established, perennial mixes repeat their show every year.

A final “mix” option is wildflower turf for instant impact. It costs more but might be worth the investment if you want to establish your planting as quickly as possible and start with relatively established plants.

Laying wildflower turf – or blocks of sedges or other plant mixes – is often the approach used for a wild roof. This needn’t be huge – log stores and sheds are ideal if their position and aspect is good – but you do need to plan from the outset as the building and its roof need to be sufficiently strong to hold the vegetation when at its wettest or when covered with snow.

For all of these options, some of the best flowers to incorporate are yarrow and scabious as well as more unusual species such as great burnet and vipers’ bugloss as they’ll really attract insects and give them lots of food and plenty to pollinate.  It’s worth thinking about a few shrubs too, such as daphnes, roses and hydrangeas, to add structure to the garden and help the pollinators.

Take a look here for lots more suggestions

Deep and dank

Or crystal clear – which ever you prefer, water is important in your garden. If recent weeks have shown us anything, it’s just how vital water is to our gardens and that’s incredibly true for wildlife visitors or residents.

A pond is the ideal and shallow edges sloping into a deeper area, combined with lots of bankside planting and greenery, sun and shade is heaven for insects and amphibians too. Lots of wildlife will tend to prefer the deep and dank option, not necessarily the garden look you’re after, so think about positioning and planting around any pond.

Keeping your pond water clear using a reed-bed approach is a good way of ensuring that your pond stays attractive to a range of wildlife. It is possible to do this with native plants such as Butomus umbellatus, Iris pseudacorus and Typha minima, which will filter the nitrates out of the water, discouraging harmful algal growth. Download advice about creating a pond for wildlife and associated planting

Somewhere to call home

There are lots of options for creating shelter and encouraging insects to live in your garden. Bug hotels are a favourite as well as wood piles.

Although you can buy insect shelters, they’re great fun to make and a really good use of some of your garden rubbish as a few pieces of wood and lots of hollow stems are all you really need. Make a few smaller bug boxes and put them in different places around your garden to see which locations your insect visitors like most. Then perhaps build something a bit bigger for the best places in your garden.

Using your log pile to encourage wildlife is also great, although it needs to be completely separate from your drying log storage for the house! Neat and tidy can work, as can higgledly piggledy but the best of all is organ pipes of wood that are partly buried in the soil. It’s all about creating shade and dampness to encourage bugs to lay eggs as well as giving them shelter to survive. I’ve built these including a couple of pieces of wood that are already damp and rotting to encourage the insects from day one but even relatively fresh and dry wood should soon capture moisture and begin to create an ideal habitat.

If you can get your log pile right for insects, you’ll also find that it can encourage birds and mammals such as hedgehogs too.

For all of these ideas, there are great guides on the Wildlife Actions pages

Written by Liz Newport of Buzy Lizzie Garden Design and Wildroof Landscapes, and Corporate Member of Cumbria Wildlife Trust