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, and therefore a must for every garden.Designing your wildlife gardenWhen planting a nectar border or any selection of flowers to attract insects, think first of what's best for them and second, of what you want to look at. The two are not remotely exclusive

, with bright red legs and a menacing pointed tail. It could only be one thing: the spectacularly intimidating, yet bizarrely and intriguingly named Pimpla hypochondriaca.If there were any insect that deserved to have an extraordinary English name given to it

. Hot and humid is best, apparently.In any one area, ants from thousands of nests will take to the skies at once, forming large, mating swarms. It's exciting, not least for insect-eating birds, which have rich pickings for a day or two. Of the bird

Late-summer nectarAs some insects are still out foraging in late-summer, it's a good idea to provide food for them with nectar-rich, late-flowering plants.Plants for beesIn late-summer, many plants have finished flowering, but bees, butterflies

Poor early-summer weather, with a prolonged cold spell, and few insects results in poor pollination. This means courgettes fail to develop, and they quickly rot on the plant. However, this is only a temporary problem, and once the weather starts

garden pestsAphidsMealybugsWhiteflyScale insectsChoose plants to grow in full sunBrowse plants by soil type

Give beneficial pollinating insects a home by making a bee hotel. The female of the non-aggressive mason bee species spends most of her life searching for hollow stems to use as a nest. So why not make a bee hotel for her in which she can lay her

by our seasons.Any late-flying insects in the garden aren't complaining though. When the sun shone last weekend these white globes of bloom attracted insects from far and wide. I can't say the most desirable insects were among them (in fact there were

chestnut scale insects, Pulvinaria regalis (pictured above). These strange insects can be quite unsightly on the bark of infested trees. In this case they've flaked away, leaving pale dusky echoes. They've probably been mopped up by the larvae of the badly

stercoraria. It's scientific name means, rather unsurprisingly 'dung-eating dung-inhabiter' and it's one of those insects that is very easy to overlook in the garden. In a grazing meadow they are obvious and multitudinous insects, speckling the fresh cow pats