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going a step too far.Blackthorn is a bit more straightforward and a bit short on folklore. It is, however, really important as it provides food for a lot of moths including the delightfully named mottled pug and lesser broad-bordered yellow underwing

tiny) garden.The garden isn't perfect and I've a long way to go, but I've documented my success by the variety of garden visitors I've gained since the transformation: blue tits and great tits, bumblebees, butterflies, moths, slugs, snails and leaf

. Like long-tailed tits, goldcrests eat insects and spiders, but specialise in tiny morsels such as moth eggs. Their beaks are designed to pick out insects from between pine needles. In really cold winters they will occasionally come to garden feeders, so keep

and use resistant varietiesCover the developing crop with well-pegged-down fleece from the moment you plant it. This avoids infestations of leek moth, whose caterpillars cause foliage dieback and low croppingMore on growing vegRead Pippa Greenwood's blog

by Northwest, when Cary Grant was pursued by a menacing yellow aeroplane). In Britain, arsenate of lead was mostly used to control codling moths on fruit trees, although it was doubtless very tempting to any gardeners stricken with homicidal yearnings

, they are so numerous in there that their maggots can work through several bucketloads of kitchen waste each week.These are sometimes joined by the smaller, but more delicately fluffy 'moth flies'. I haven't tried to identify these little creatures, even though

. The first is relatively straightforward: the mullein moth caterpillar. These are stripy chaps that start quite skinny, but rapidly become as fat as witchity grubs by eating verbascum leaves at a terrifying rate. I grow the gorgeous Verbascum bombyciferum

viewer. The idea was that sunlight during the day would power a small light at night to attract nocturnal moths to settle to be examined the next day. Unfortunately the light was so feeble it never attracted a single insect. I had better luck leaving

problem: the hazel (unlike many plants) cannot fertilise itself, so needs to find another tree. How to disseminate pollen from one tree to another? Many plants use insects — bees, wasps, moths, butterflies or ants — while others draw on the services

the life cycle of the lily beetle or caring for moth orchids, and in the next making bird nesting boxes or sowing seeds in recycled toilet roll tubes. That's the joy of Gardeners' World Live - offering something for everyone, and giving visitors a chance