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and secure it in place with clothes pegs.To ensure good fruit-set you need good pollination, and for this you need bees. Having spent many days outside enjoying this warm weather recently, I'm encouraged by just how many bees I've seen, including large

into the plant and can be present in concentrated forms in the nectar and pollen of flowers. If you do use these chemicals, remove any flowers before they open, as they will also kill any bees that visit them.mint, pennyroyalMay-SeptemberMore pests of herbs

the more widely available chocolate cosmos, Cosmos atrosanguineus.More advice on growing scabiousGrowing scabious for seaside theme.Planting scabious to provide nectar and pollen for bees. Scabious plant inspiration.

Make a bug boxEncourage helpful insects such as ladybirds, lacewings and bees into your garden by building them their own bug box. Giving them somewhere to shelter or hibernate, this simple to build home is perfect for gardeners who want to look

-roller caterpillar. No sign of them yet, but I'll expect them later.I can still see the results of leafcutter bee activity from last year. One was nesting in a redundant overflow pipe from the old bathroom and I regularly saw it with its green leaf curl cargo bobbing

at the honeysuckle flowers. But it took me a few days to realize the bumblebees were different. There were several species, but my eye was caught by the well-groomed buff orange ones. In the UK most of the all-orange bumbles, also sometimes called carder bees

of apple trees to swell, flushed with pink, before the pure white flowers burst open. As my main reason for growing apple trees is for their fruit, I'm keen that the trees produce abundant blossom, and also that there will be plenty of bees to enjoy it

this invasion to be extremely unfair.So what to do? Pesticides applied every spring and autumn will kill the larvae. But I worry that the active ingredient (thiacloprid - a nicotinoid compound related to imidacloprid) also kills bees and other wildlife (you can

Last weekend my partner and I attended one of the special snowdrop days at Chelsea Physic Garden. Saturday was a beautiful, clear sunny day and it was great being outside among catkins, unfurling leaf buds, early bees and, of course, snowdrops

for bees. How about an International Bulbs-for-Bees-Among-Wild-Plants Guerrilla Gardening Planting Day instead?