You don't have to fill your garden with nettles to encourage them... These simple steps will attract butterflies and bees and fill your garden with beautiful, buzzy creatures.

if you think wildlife thrives only in wild places, think again. Even the tiniest garden can be a haven for butterflies and still be a pleasant habitat for people. Gardens managed with butterflies - and moths - in mind will also help our rapidly declining population of bees, along with helpful pollinating insects such as hoverflies. And you get to reap the visual rewards, time and time again. 

By Ambra Edwards

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Adult butterflies feed on nectar, so stock your garden with nectar-filled flowers. Stick to old-fashioned varieties and single blooms - these tend to be richest in nectar, while double flowers and modern hybrids offer little. Catmint (Nepeta), sedums, Verbena bonariensis, fuchsias and plants with daisy flowers are all excellent choices - and of course, buddleja (left), commonly called the butterfly bush. The more variety you offer, the wider the range of visitors you'll attract.

Butterflies need heat to get them going, so position plants for them in the sunniest, most sheltered place you can. The warmth that stimulates the butterflies will also bring out the fragrance in scented plants such as lavenders and roses, along with aromatic herbs like rosemary and thyme. Rocks or paving stones that warm up quickly in the morning sun will also provide useful places for butterflies to bask, so a feature such as a thyme pavement will suit them to perfection.

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Try to plant a succession of flowers that will provide food from late February right through to October. Despite two harsh winters, the trend has been for butterflies to emerge from hibernation earlier and earlier each spring, while several species that once migrated, like the Red Admiral, are now overwintering in Britain. Early-flowering plants such as crocuses and primroses are crucial for their survival. Most butterflies will migrate or die at the end of the summer, but those that remain will depend on late-flowering plants to build up their reserves for the winter.

Blooming in spring

Aubretia, Alyssum, Cotoneaster, Bluebell, Crocus, Forget-me-not, Honesty, Pansy, Primrose, Pulmonaria, Sweet rocket (Hesperis matronalis), Wallflower

Blooming in summer

Catmint, Globe thistle, (Echinops), Honeysuckle, Greater knapweed, Lavender, Marigold, Marjoram (Origanum), Mint, Ragged robin, Red valerian, Verbena bonariensis, Scabious, Thyme

Blooming in autumn

Buddleja, Coneflower (Echinacea), Eucomis, Fuchsia, Hebe, Honeysuckle, Ice plant (Sedum spectabile), Ivy, Michaelmas daisy, Russian sage (Perovskia )

While it's easy to get enthusiastic about adult butterflies, it's at the creepy-crawly stage they most need our help. No gardener will ever feel affection for the very hungry caterpillars of the Large White, which can decimate a cabbage patch overnight (the trick is to lure them away from your brassicas with the even tastier leaves of nasturtiums), but few other caterpillars cause any trouble. Holly, ivy and pyracantha will all provide food for the Holly Blue; bird's foot trefoil for the Common Blue; lady's smock, sweet rocket and honesty are food plants for the Orange Tip, while fuchsias support the astonishing Elephant Hawk Moth caterpillar, said to resemble an elephant's trunk.

The traditional way of planting a herbaceous border - grouping plants together in drifts rather than dotting them about one by one - is not only more pleasing to the eye, but more beneficial for insects. To a butterfly, the colour and scent that we enjoy in flowers are nothing more or less than an invitation to lunch, so massing them sends out the clearest colour signal and strongest scent. This is increasingly important, as atmospheric pollution is destroying the fragrance trail of flowers (scents that could travel for more than half a mile in the 1800s now travel no more than 600 feet), making it harder for insects to find them. There are many ways of massing plants in the garden - edging a path with catmint or a veg plot with a row of chives, underplanting roses with a froth of lavender, or making up your summer patio pots with just one kind of plant rather than many.

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Rather than mowing every inch of lawn, why not let some of the grass grow up into a mini-wildflower meadow where butterflies can lay their eggs? Grasses grow strongly in this situation, so you will need to add flowers in the form of plug plants. Self-heal, knapweed and ox-eye daisies will probably appear as if by magic, though, while in a damp area you may be lucky enough to find ragged robin or lady's smock settling in. Alternatively, seed a small area using a flower meadow seed mix with a high proportion of flowers. Cornfield mixes do well in gardens, as they enjoy the fertile conditions.

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If a meadow isn't an option, try to work a few ‘wild' plants into your garden - you'll find plenty at the garden centre. Cowslips, valerian and scabious are all highly decorative, and there are now beautiful white cultivated forms of both herb robert and willowherb. Few sights are more enchanting than a big fat dozy bumblebee nosing its way into the cups of a foxglove.

Try to cultivate ivy - it is not only an invaluable food plant, but offers the dense cover that butterflies such as brimstones, peacocks and small tortoiseshells need to hibernate as adults. (While the weight of ivy can distort a young tree, it will do a mature tree no harm at all, and will prolong the life of a wooden fence by keeping it dry.) If you can tuck a small log pile somewhere out of sight, this makes a good nesting site, too - alternatively, choose a ready-made butterfly house. Overwintering caterpillars and pupae should be left undisturbed, so try to delay cutting back and tidying up the garden till the spring.

Along with garden pests, insecticides and pesticides kill butterflies and bees. Click here for eco-friendly and organic gardening tips