Am I right in saying we don't have native winter flowering plants for pollinators? I tried looking it up but I got no results at all.
There aren't many, and this is somewhere that non-natives can help, with the unseasonably mild winter weather we increasingly get. However spurge laurel is one native winter flowering shrub, but it's not common. Gorse usually has a few flowers on it somewhere, even in winter.
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour".
No don't worry, if it's not a problem it's not a problem. I'll grow what I like, once again do not trust advice from Americans, they have an entirely separate climate to ours. I live in Southern England so White Admirals are a thing but I can't be the only one who is growing Lonicera periclymenum (there's some at the front, I want to put Japonica at the back) so the base is covered. I live in an area where there's a lot of abandoned/unmaintained garden so there's a lot of wild material for butterflies etc to work. I'll just grow what I like for now on and not worry about nature, some plants are better than no plants.
Yes this is one of the main points made by Ken Thompson. No point in planting nettles if your neighbour's garden is a big nettle patch. Providing something not already found locally will probably be more useful. Wildlife doesn't expect to have everything within one garden, it will flit about between the gardens in a neighbourhood so the variety can come about that way.
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour".
Just to add to the excellent above post, I often think it's better doing an abundance of a particular plant than just having a bit of everything. You are more likely to do good for the critters if you have have lots of habitat for that critter rather than just a token plant mixed with other things.
As an example we grow verbascum and because they self seed, some years we have a few and others an abundance. We only tend to notice the mullein moths when we have lots of the food plant. If we just had one verbascum, the chances of seeing the moth would be quite slim.
@B3 is right - ivy is a wonderful plant for pollinators - on a sunny day it'll be covered in small buzzing things
And it unfairly gets a dreadful rep. I'm a member of one or two landscaping groups on other social platforms and barely a week goes by without someone posting about removing an ivy from a tree thinking they're 'saving' it.
If people are concerned about ivy, there's a variety called 'Arborescens' which has two great benefits - it doesn't cling, and it bears the flowers and fruit that you don't get for a long time on normal ivy (they only appear on mature old wood). In fact typing this I am wondering why I don't have it in my garden. It is more of a small bush than a climber.
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour".
In the grand scheme of things I don't think the occasional japanese honeysuckle or wisteria in a garden is going to do any harm. People are still planting real nuisance invasives like running bamboos which as far as I know are of no use at all to british wildlife.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
Oh yeah bamboo is a pain, good luck getting rid of it if you plant it in the ground. If you want it for practical reasons (bamboo canes), I'd recommend using willow branches instead as they also bend.
In the grand scheme of things I don't think the occasional japanese honeysuckle or wisteria in a garden is going to do any harm. People are still planting real nuisance invasives like running bamboos which as far as I know are of no use at all to british wildlife.
Every time i see a new laurel hedge part of me dies inside.
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As an example we grow verbascum and because they self seed, some years we have a few and others an abundance. We only tend to notice the mullein moths when we have lots of the food plant. If we just had one verbascum, the chances of seeing the moth would be quite slim.