Val Bourne shares her advice on how to manage a garden organically with ‘the full Monty’ of creatures

Lots of gardeners ask my advice about how to manage a garden organically and they are often surprised by my answers.

They expect me to advise: build a compost heap and make comfrey tea, both of which we (the royal ‘we’ again, I’m afraid) do.

However the secret to gardening organically is to encourage a wide range of insects, both above and below the ground, so you can have a balance. I point out the ladybird needs a colony of aphids to devour and the chaffinch and the wren like a few aphids too. The thrush likes a snail and the hedgehog will devour slugs and earthworms.

Ah, people say, but I don’t have any thrushes and I haven’t seen a ladybird for years. Well, have you snails and aphids to keep them happy?

I’m afraid in gardening you have to have the full Monty. You can’t pick and choose, or divide them into saints and sinners. These creatures interact and need each other to survive. Many of them are tiny and, unless you look carefully, you may never spot a ladybird larvae or a pupating ladybird. They’ll be there, though.

Building up a good ecosystem depends on the current buzz word ‘diversity’. That means planting a full range of trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals, grasses, ferns, bulbs etc. Different types of plants support different insects. The second part of the recipe is having flowers for as many weeks of the year as possible, for those early pollinators and the late-stayers. Put those plants in the correct place, with spring flowers under trees and shrubs and summer performers in full sun and you will avoid plant diseases.

And, dare one say, only grow what does well for you. Struggling to grow phloxes in the dry county of Essex will almost certainly lead to mildew. Much better to home in on silvers and other drought-tolerant plants. I expanded my ideas in The Natural Gardener published by Frances Lincoln in 2005.

Try to leave undisturbed corners and longer grass: don’t strim and tidy your garden edges. Following this regime will attract wildlife — and it’s often more abundant in built-up areas than in the arable wastelands. Beetles, great predators, will be far more in evidence if there’s cover.

Invariably I am also asked about native plants. Native plants have a special bond with our native insects and having some wild flowers will help. However our native flora isn’t very colourful and exciting, lovely though it is, so the best advice I can give you about flowers is to plant some simply shaped ones of different types, so that you have bells, saucers, trumpets, umbels and thistle-like flowers.

A variety of shapes will attract a variety of different insects. Have some double flowers too though, because these last longer.

Planting a native hedge containing edible fruit will attract lots of insects and birds. The Woodland Trust has produced a table showing the difference between woody natives and non-natives. A mature oak could support 284 species in theory, but most of will not have room or enough years for this. However the hawthorn is fourth at 149 species, behind native willow (266)and native birch (229). In contrast, alien plants are poor: the highest is Spruce (Picea) at 37. The Rhododendron attracts no species at all and I suspect the laurel (Prunus laurocerasus ‘Rotundifolia’ ) is also poor.

For more details, visit www.countrysideinfo.co.uk/woodland_manage/ tree_value.htm

Native Hedging Supplier Buckingham Nurseries (www.hedging.co.uk /01280 822133) offer mail order and also have a display garden of hedges. They will offer advice.