welcome wildlife into your garden
top varieties for bees and birds
bring pollinators into your garden
by Sarah Raven
The honeybee is in peril, but every gardener can help by planting pollinator friendly plants in their gardens and allotments.
Gardening, for me, has turned a completely new corner. I used to love it - like cooking - for the disengagement it allows, the absorbing, practical, satisfying, creative parts of gardening that make it the perfect thing to do when you want to cut off from the rest of life. I also love it for rooting me firmly in the time of year and weather.
But I'm seeing it differently now and I think that's probably to do with getting older - with having hung around in gardens for 20 years.
I don't want this to sound too inflated, because after all, it is only a garden, but I am beginning to think of my garden as a contribution to the world. It has - or can have - effects and influences beyond itself.
It is a small patch that I can turn into a dynamo for a richer and healthier landscape, and now is the ideal time to make definite shifts - a New Year's resolution, in fact.