Tips on how to attract butterflies to your garden - plus, find out what else needs doing in the garden this week.

By Hannah Stephenson


She's banged the drum for the Gurkhas, she's the ambassador for an initiative to combat climate change and waste - but most recently, actress and keen gardener Joanna Lumley has turned her attentions to the plight of the humble butterfly.

Backing this year's Big Butterfly Count, the world's biggest survey of butterflies organised by Butterfly Conservation and Marks & Spencer, Lumley explains: "I've been fascinated by butterflies ever since being brought up in the Far East where they were, like many things there, huge, bright and extraordinary.

"The great heartbreak is to see how few there are today. Looking out on my garden now, and walking up and down it as I do every day, I'm not seeing any.

"This huge, scientific survey is actually counting the effect of mankind upon the natural world."

The public is being asked to take 15 minutes to participate in the count, which runs from July 20 to August 11 (prime time for butterfly activity), to help identify trends in species that will aid us in planning how to protect butterflies from extinction, as well as understanding the effect of climate change on wildlife.

Butterflies react very quickly to change in their environment which makes them excellent biodiversity indicators. Butterfly declines are an early warning for other wildlife losses. Almost three-quarters of UK butterfly species have decreased in population during the last decade, while the number of UK's larger moths has crashed in the past 40 years, according to a recent reports by a group of leading conservation organisations.

"The predictions are that numbers will be down again this year," says Butterfly Conservation surveys manager Richard Fox.

"As butterflies had such a bad year last year because of the wet weather, it's likely that fewer offspring will emerge.

"The Small Tortoiseshell has had eight bad years in a row and has declined by 74% since 1976. The weather last year would have been a major contributing factor but there are other things going on. They need suitable habitats to thrive."

This year's cold spring should not have affected numbers because cold snaps tend to happen when butterflies are dormant, so the insects simply come out later, he explains.

Lumley's own London garden, with its wild area of meadow planting at the end, should be a haven for butterflies, but she has seen few this year.

"That's quite a good area for butterflies, but I've maybe seen three this year," she explains.

She's nailed a moth overwintering box, featuring a nectar column, onto her pear tree, but so far it remains empty.

"Like the bees, suddenly there's been something catastrophic happening. Something we are doing is wrong. I suspect we have to blame it on our methods of farming, but I think it's also down to our way of living in our urban environment, getting rid of gardens and putting down decking, paving stones and tarmac, treating our vehicles as more important than our creatures."

Lumley, who is also the M&S sustainability champion, has planted many butterfly-friendly species in her garden.

"I love nettles, as do butterflies. We've got a tiny cottage in Scotland, on a wild hillside, and we have a meadow garden there. It's important not to be too tidy in your garden, because butterflies love species that aren't necessarily the smartest flowers. In London, I have Michaelmas daisies, buddleia, lavender, honesty, dandelions. Butterflies like all of these."

She'll be doing two butterfly counts - one at her London garden, the other in her Scottish retreat - and hopes that she'll have more luck during the three-week count than she has so far.


The Butterfly Conservation offers the following tips to attract butterflies to your garden:

:: Choose sunny, sheltered spots when planting nectar plants, because butterflies like warmth.

:: Select different plants to attract a wider variety of species.

:: Prolong flowering by deadheading regularly, mulching with organic compost and watering well.

:: Don't use insecticides and pesticides which kill butterflies and many pollinating insects.

:: Grow plants which will attract butterflies including buddleia, Verbena bonariensis, lavender, perennial wallflower, marjoram, phlox, nasturtium, escallonia, cone flower, aster, sweet rocket, lobelia and herbs including chives, thyme and mint.

:: Information: Big Butterfly Count takes place from July 20 to August 11. For details go to www.bigbutterflycount.org


Best of the bunch - Cranesbill geranium

This perennial plant is perfect at the front of borders, to fill in gaps where otherwise weeds would grow and to add colour to the scene. Generally easy to grow, the compact types grow to around 15cm tall, are good for rock gardens, while mat-forming plants make good ground cover in woodland gardens and taller, clump-forming species and hybrids look great in a border or among shrubs. Good varieties include Geranium 'Orion', whose striking violet-blue flowers stand out in herbaceous beds, while G. 'Ann Folkard' produces magenta flowers from May to October with a foil of yellowish young foliage ageing to light green. A real winner is g. Rozanne, which was the winner of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 'Plant of the Centenary' this year. Good companions for the soft mound shapes of these hardy geraniums include plants with a strong outline, such as phormiums, tall alliums or irises. Cut them back in mid-summer if they start to look tatty.


Good enough to eat - Thyme

If you love colour but aren't very good with maintenance, a pot of fragrant thyme may be the way to go, providing you with leaves for the kitchen and pretty flowers for the garden. Some are not really culinary plants but are grown for their flowers, so make sure you pick up the right type if you want to use it for cooking. Thyme needs to be planted in a sunny spot in poor, well-drained soil or in a terracotta pot filled with John Innes No 1 potting compost mixed with 50% potting grit to make a well-drained mix. The best time to plant is early summer, after the last frosts, spacing busy, upright types 23cm (9in) from their neighbours and spreading varieties 30cm (12in) apart. Water them in and water again in dry spells until the plants become established, after which time you won't need to water them much at all, and don't feed them. Good culinary thymes include T. vulgaris, which has strongly flavoured, short leaves and deep mauve-pink flowers in June and July, and T. x citriodorus, which has lemon-scented leaves and a slightly milder flavour. To harvest, snip young shoots from the tips of the stems.


Three ways to... Make the most of fertiliser

1. Use granular or powder fertilisers on moist ground, then hoe them in. If the soil surface is dry, water well in.

2. Don't apply feeds when plants are under stress due to water shortage or attack from pest or disease, nor in dormant seasons.

3. Always follow the recommended rate of use. Too much fertiliser can scorch plant roots. If you over-apply by mistake, drench the compost with plenty of water to wash out the excess.


What to do this week

:: Prune large and overgrown Clematis montana after flowering, cutting back hard to encourage new growth.

:: Continue to earth up potatoes to encourage them to root into a ridge of soil and develop a larger crop.

:: Top up pond water levels as they fall in hot weather.

:: Place a small ramp into steep-sided pools and water features so that small mammals like hedgehogs can climb out if they accidentally fall in

:: Give extra water to plants growing at the base of walls where the soil can remain dry despite rain

:: Pinch out the tips of trailing plants in hanging baskets to make them branch out. Pick off dead flowers every few days.

:: Sow seeds of wallflowers in a corner of the garden to transplant in the autumn

:: Use a soap-based spray to deal with heavy infestations of aphids

:: Continue slug patrols in the cool of the evening, or early morning, or after rain, to protect vulnerable plants

:: Buy bulbs for autumn blooms, including Nerine bowdenii, colchicums and autumn crocus

:: Take cuttings from osteospermum, fuchsia, pelargonium and argyranthemums, root them into small pots to produce young plants to keep through the winter

:: Take soft and semi-ripe cuttings using non-flowering shoots of shrubs such as cotinus, potentilla, hydrangea, spiraea and weigela.