Towns, Gardens and Britain in Bloom Bees, Butterflies and Blooms

Our bees, butterflies and pollinating insects are dying out.

This giant insect workforce pollinate our crops

and if they disappear, most of our favourite foods will vanish too.

It's a complex crisis, but poor nutrition is leaving our insect pollinators

vulnerable to pesticides and parasites.

I'm Sarah Raven, and in this series I'm on a campaign to wake people up

and show everyone the simple steps we can take

to stop this quiet catastrophe.

The thing is, if we all make a conscious decision

to plant pollen- and nectar-rich plants throughout the country,

together we can get Britain buzzing again.

Last week, I tackled our countryside

and showed how we can make our villages and farmland

far more friendly for our butterflies, bees and pollinating insects.

This week, my campaign moves to our towns,

our gardens and our flower displays.

They may seem much smaller in scale but, combined, they make up a massive network of green space,

estimated at well over a million acres,

and the potential to help our pollinators here is huge.

We have a choice.

Either we continue to watch the decline of our insects or we do something about it.

What I've been learning is that it's very easy to make a real difference.

It's just a case of re-learning which are the simple flowers

which are useful to our pollinating insects,

and planting them instead of the fancy blooms which aren't.

The big culprits are some of our favourite bedding plants,

like double begonias, busy Lizzies

and bedding geraniums, which we plant by the million each year

in our gardens, our roundabouts and throughout our flower beds.

They're colourful, cheap and easy fillers

and may well be our favourites

but I doubt our insect pollinators would agree.

Dr Jeff Ollerton has been researching the relationships

between flowers and insects for over 20 years

and he knows that not all flowers are equal.

These are all really good examples

of plants that I wouldn't put into a garden if I was interested

in supporting pollinators

and providing food for those pollinators.

All of them are so highly bred,

there's no nectar, there's no pollen available,

or, if it is available, it's very, very difficult to access.

With something like this, which is a member of the daisy family,

something which should have a fairly simple blossom

containing lots and lots of individual flowers.

Here, all of these individual flowers have turned into showy petals,

with little or no pollen available.

To the gardener, they offer colour and impact

but to the pollinators, they don't offer anything -

no food, no nectar, no pollen.

But the plants we put in our gardens and flower displays are more important now than ever

as, over recent decades, our countryside has changed massively.

We've lost 98% of our wildflower meadows,

and there's much less food

and natural habitat for pollinators and wildlife in general.

But our bees and pollinating insects are crucial as they fertilise many of our crops.

Without them, our favourite foods could disappear

from the supermarket shelves.

And so that's where our gardens and flower displays

could become so vital.

If we choose the right flowers, we could give our honey bees, butterflies

and all the other pollinating insects the help they so desperately need.

So, in our towns, where better to start my campaign than by challenging competitors

in the biggest gardening competition in the land

to think of our bees and butterflies first and their medals second?

One of the most successful Britain In Bloom groups is Harrogate,

whose bedding tradition goes back to Victorian times.

It's a town that takes its gardening very seriously

and has a fierce reputation for excellence.

It could be an uphill struggle to persuade the people who design these displays,

which are so medal successful,

to change anything in their choice of plants.

I'm feeling quite nervous because Harrogate is such a key centre.

If we can get them on side, because they're consistent winners of Britain In Bloom,

then I feel lots of other towns will follow

so they could be the flag bearers for the whole campaign.

-Good morning, everybody.

-ALL:

-Good morning.

I'm Sarah Raven

and I've come today to talk to you a little bit about a campaign

that I am launching here, really.

We are in a crisis of biodiversity at the moment.

Every county throughout Britain are losing,

particularly moths, bees and butterflies,

and we've all got to do something about it as the custodians of our environment.

And all of you, as gardeners, would be a real help in that.

To encourage Britain In Bloom to change,

I'm going to need two plans of attack.

Ultimately, I'll need to persuade those in charge of the competition at the Royal Horticultural Society

but, first, I need the support of a Bloom community and get them to change.

I've brought expert Dr Jeff Ollerton to provide some hard facts.

Good morning, everyone.

As Sarah mentioned, a lot of our insects are declining.

For example, something like 67% of our moth species have declined over the last 50 years,

about 25% of our hoverfly species have declined,

we've lost three bumblebee species, which have gone extinct,

and the trends are continuing downwards.

The key to my campaign in Harrogate is to get the Bloom group

to change the types of plants in their displays.

For instance, rather than, perhaps, begonias, we move to single dahlias.

Can you maintain the quality by making the changes?

The whole wildlife gardening thing has the reputation for being messy.

That really, really, really, doesn't need to be the case.

It still looks great, you can get the same colours that you want,

you've just got something that's nectar rich and insect friendly.

I'm a little bit concerned about...

how are you going to encourage people to pick the right sorts of plants, like at garden centres or nurseries,

because people tend to go and pick what they fancy.

Mary Bond had hit on a key issue here.

How do gardeners really know what they should be planting?

It's something I'll need to look into,

and Mary and fellow Bloom group member Caroline Bayliss could become important allies

to drive the campaign forward in Harrogate.

What we started doing on the website last year was taking a photograph and then doing the...

Oh, the planting plan.

Again, listening to what you've been talking about today, I think that'd be a good opportunity

for us to get it across to the public, because we can put an explanation.

"If you plant such and such, you'll attract bees to the garden."

-That could be quite useful.

-Fantastic! Really good.

Mary's response is encouraging,

but Britain In Bloom is now such an established gardening institution across the whole of the UK,

I can tell it's not going to be easy to effect a sea change in attitudes.

The competition was set up by the Tourist Board in 1963

to provide an incentive for passionate groups of volunteers to beautify their communities.

Floral wow factor and tidiness soon became the obsession

as villages, towns and cities across the country joined in.

In 2001, the RHS took the reins, and ever since has tried hard

to shed the old-fashioned "blousy blooms" image

and has done much to bring in greener initiatives

such as composting and more naturalistic planting.

But to win the competition, bright colours and bedding plants are still hugely important.

I want to show everyone that there's a real opportunity here

to help our bees and pollinators that's just being missed.

The summer bedding goes in, what, May 1st?

-We start our summer bedding on 1st June.

-1st June, OK.

Being a bit further north, we have to leave it later, otherwise we get the late frosts and we lose it.

Patrick Kilburn is head of Harrogate's Park Department

and the man who can make this all happen...or not.

He's agreed to show me around the town, where the planting is treated like a military operation.

If you did a questionnaire around Harrogate

of what they feel most proud of in their town,

do you think one would be the bedding schemes and the general kind of flora?

It's more than saying, do I think? We actually know.

We get a lot of feedback. Very positive comments from the public. That's what we're very proud of.

The sense of civic pride in Harrogate is huge,

and winning gold in Britain In Bloom is pretty much expected,

so any suggestions could really take Patrick out of his comfort zone.

But Caroline from the Bloom committee

is keen for me to see something optimistic for Harrogate pollinators.

Can we show you some of our crocus, please?

This is something we're particularly known for... little bit over at the moment.

Yeah, I love a crocus.

Crocus are particularly good flowers for pollinators.

They provide nectar and pollen when there's little else around

early in the year for our bumblebee queens.

This whole area is just a mass of purple and white crocus.

It looks quite divine.

If I can persuade Harrogate

to increase these sorts of simple nectar- and pollen-rich flowers

in their Bloom displays across the year,

I'll have really got Harrogate buzzing again.

Patrick's agreed to let me change two of the flower beds as a trial

so my next stop is the council nurseries

to meet the team that grow the plants for the displays.

I need to convince them too

as it will mean change to the types of plants

they propagate in the future.

We're looking mostly at these two beds here.

Originally it was going to be F1 geraniums and marigold edging.

I've got my scrapbook here which may help us.

These are all single dahlias - Juliet and Bishop of Auckland.

Rudbeckias, which are fantastic.

This is a cosmos called Antiquity, so we've got the aesthetic and the insect benefit.

-And then the cardinal lobelia.

-Yes.

-Excellent. It's not too late for all that, is it?

-No problem at all.

Looking across this sea of bedding plants,

it's clear what I'm suggesting would mean a massive change.

Many of the varieties being grown in their millions would need to be replaced,

but agreeing to trial a new range of plants as an experiment

to fill a couple of prominent beds in the town is a great start.

But I'm thinking about Mary's question.

How do we know which flowers are best for our bees and insect pollinators?

It's quite a grey area, so I've come to the Royal Horticultural Society's flagship gardens at Wisley

to get some clear tips from RHS advisor Helen Bostock.

The great thing here, Helen, is that we got a really good

combination of plants that you see in lots of people's gardens,

and I was just wondering if you could give me

the guidelines of how I can tell, when I walk into a garden centre,

and there's tonnes of plants to choose from,

how do you know which are good for pollinators and the ones that are useless?

There's some really simple pointers that we can give to gardeners.

The first thing is, look to see if the flower is single or double.

Generally speaking, single flowers, where you can see the pollen in the centre of the flower,

it's nice and open, that tends to be better -

it's more accessible for the nectar and the pollen for pollinating insects.

The second principle is the flower shape.

Try to get a range of shapes because they will all cater for different insects.

Out in front, we've got these superb achilleas here.

This is a very flat, open flower structure.

It's also a composite flower. There's a lot of flowers making up that one head.

Because it's open, short-turned insects, things like hoverflies,

can easily get on there and get at the pollen and nectar.

The last thing is to look at plants which have a succession of flower opening.

The foxglove is a classic.

We can see down the bottom there are some of the old flowers that are faded,

there's a cluster in the centre of flowers which are open and ready and available

but we can also see if there's flowers to come.

These flowers will go on for weeks.

Helen's three simple tips of a succession of flowers,

a variety of flower shapes and single blooms

are great to consider when putting any planting plan together for pollinators.

And these are the exact rules that I want Harrogate to follow

so I've decided to send them to see these principles used to full effect

at the horticultural event of the year.

It's the Chelsea Flower Show.

I want to prove to Patrick, Mary and Caroline

that pollinator friendly planting can be as eye catching

as their colourful bloom displays AND can win major medals too.

I really hope they will be inspired by one young garden designer

on his first outing to Chelsea with a biodiversity garden.

In most people's gardens, when somebody is a plant-a-holic, they have a huge range of plants.

By encouraging diversity, you're going to encourage insects into the garden.

Layering in the garden is really important,

because different layers are appealing to different insects.

You'll get different bees coming in at slightly higher heights,

some of the hoverflies and the smaller insects like ants will be lower down,

and it's about creating a tapestry of layers that really weaves through the garden.

Everything we've tried to do is to make the garden have a soul

and the soul really is the wildlife.

Can you tell us a bit about the colours you've got here, Paul?

There's an interesting selection of purples and yellows.

All of the colour choices in the garden came from research

that was carried out in India and Sheffield

as to what colour of plants insects that have never been introduced to colour,

so, particularly excited by this kind of lilac, mauve, yellow,

so that was our starting block for building colours into the garden.

PATRICK: You've got a lot a lot of plants here. If you were going to suggest two or three as key plants

for us to maybe trial or look at?

Things like aquilegias, which are fabulous at this time of year

because they're kind of singing at insects to take the nectar.

Bees really love things like alliums because all of the petals

kind of relax open, giving the insects a really wide access.

The other thing is, make sure you've got successive planting,

so things like this veronica, which will be flowering much later in the year

can have things like early geraniums growing through.

When the geraniums have gone over and it would look slightly untidy,

the veronica will be pushing out all the foliage and will cover that,

then it will come into flower, reducing the amount of maintenance.

CAROLINE: Yes, we don't want to start looking untidy. That isn't Harrogate.

PATRICK: My only concern is how it fits into some of the settings that we've got.

I thought the colour scheming was wonderful.

That purple and yellow, particularly at this time of year,

is really effective, and the touches of pink as well, I really like that.

In parks' bedding, you do tend to have a bit more of the orange and the bright red,

whereas those lovely pastel shades,

-which, obviously, Mary and I absolutely love!

-I'll be honest,

I'm not actually keen on the traditional Victorian bedding.

You see some of this helps our arguments with Patrick.

Yes, he does listen, he does listen.

Despite the difference in opinion on colour schemes, the fact that so many gardens at Chelsea

have picked up on planting with pollinators in mind seems to have had a positive effect.

So what are their conclusions to the day?

I was a bit of a sceptic at first,

and the reason for that is that the bedding in the parks is fairly traditional,

it's what Harrogate is renowned for,

and to start to move away from that is a risk,

but what I've re-assured by, if you like, is the diversity.

The colours are still there, the choice is still there,

and I think there's a real opportunity, I really do.

This is the way gardens are going. Traditional bedding,

people are not interested in that in the same way.

You don't see traditional bedding here.

I think one of the most exciting things is how far Patrick has already gone down this path.

-In fact probably quicker than the rest of us!

-Yes.

I'm amazed at the difference a day at the Chelsea Flower Show can make,

but will it last when we they all get back to Harrogate?

I really hope so.

But, for me, it's time to make sure that I'm practising what I preach.

So back in my garden at Perch Hill,

experienced garden naturalist Steve Head has come to help me assess my garden

for its suitability for insect pollinators,

and to award it an insect friendly score.

So, this is the walled bit of garden.

Oh, my, it's lovely.

It's quite jungly, which is probably a good thing, isn't it?

Oh, it's a wonderful thing. What's the point of having bare earth in the garden, I ask myself.

It's not what it's there for.

This actually already touches an awful lot of good points.

You've got so much different structure in here.

You've got the density of the bamboo,

you've got the tall grasses,

you've got the perennials.

But, generally, there's a pretty good big biomass of plants in here.

There are possibly one of two things we could comment on, though.

So, a downside?

Well, not really a downside.

You have to think hard about succession in the garden

because it's very important that you try to get a nectar and pollen flow all through the year,

and quite a lot of your pollen and nectar-producing plants

are beginning to go over now.

But all you're trying to do is to make you garden attractive for wildlife.

It doesn't mean that everything you put in it has to be absolutely perfect.

It's got to look like a garden and be a pleasure to look at.

Then just tweak it to make sure it's good for wildlife as well.

-So marks out of ten - how am I doing, do you think?

-Well,

I think you're well up above 5 or 6.

-God, that's worse than I thought!

-It's a lovely garden but it tends to be doing one thing.

Something I'll tell you that will give you an immediate plus to your marks

-would be to put in some water.

-Yeah.

Did you know that bees use several litres of water a day

on a hot day like this to keep their hive cool?

It takes 40,000 trips by a bee to get a litre of water.

So if you put out an area out that the bees can take water from,

in other words very, very shallow at the edges,

then you'll be doing the pollinators an enormous service.

My garden's got the potential to be great for wildlife

and by adding water and more late-flowering plants like sedums,

buddleias and Michaelmas daises,

I'll be able to give a better succession of nectar,

and score top points from Steve.

Back in Harrogate, I've asked expert pollination ecologist

Dr Jeff Ollerton to join Mary Bond from Harrogate In Bloom

to see how easy it is to find insect friendly plants at her local garden centre.

We've got quite a nice selection of all the different plants,

so it's a case of, how would you know where to start?

We can obviously start with plant labels.

-Well, does it tell you anything... at all?

-Um...

"Attractive green-grey foliage.

"Plant in containers and garden borders."

Other than that...

Nothing about how good they are for pollinating insects.

-On a day like this, you can't use the insects to guide you.

-No.

If this was a nice sunny day,

you can watch the insects visiting the flowers,

and that would give you an indication of what they were fond of visiting and what they were ignoring.

On a rainy day and with no clear information about bees or butterflies on the labels,

it's near impossible to pick plants that are perfect for our pollinators,

but Jeff has a trick up his sleeve

and has brought a simple scientific device to measure the nectar.

It's a sugar refractometer.

So, nectar is a sugar solution?

Nectar is mainly a sugar solution.

There are a lot of other chemicals in there

but it's predominantly a sugar solution.

So, this is the kit? This is going to measure the sugar content?

And the volume of sugar being produced in the flowers.

It's the flowers which are the attraction,

it's the nectar which is the main reward

which keeps them coming back to the same type of flower,

and it's the pollen which is being picked up by the pollinators

and spread between the different flowers,

and that's sexual reproduction in flowers.

So, why do they like the nectar? Is it just because it tastes nice?

Because it's energy for them?

-It's a source of energy.

-It's a carbohydrate, yes.

And for things like butterflies and bees,

it's almost their sole source of carbohydrate.

So, for our insects, visiting a flower that has no nectar reward

is like turning up at a restaurant that's run out of food.

We use these glass microbe capillary tubes

to measure the volume of nectar.

So how do you know where to put your capillary in there?

Essentially, you've got to behave like a bee.

-You can see where the open florets are.

-Oh, I see. Like little tubes, aren't they?

That explains why the bee sits there for a while and it just dots away.

Yep, goes around.

So, now we'll pop that onto one of these sugar refractometers.

Just a tiny spot, isn't it?

It is, yes.

OK, so that's about 35% sugar concentration.

Gosh, that's a lot.

It's an awful lot of energy for the plant to be investing in providing that reward

-for its pollinators.

-Yes.

But as far as the plant's concerned, there's a lot riding on it.

So, a dahlia is a really good choice for a garden,

-but that's presumably the single dahlia.

-Yes, that's a single dahlia.

We've got this one, which I would call the ornamental one

-and what most people would regard as a dahlia.

-A typical dahlia - double flowers and very highly bred.

You're trying to find the same tubes. I can see where you're having the problem.

They're not visible, are they?

No, I can't get any nectar out of there at all.

-So that's a real contrast.

-Yes, that's right.

And, to be honest, that's as bold and colourful as this double, many-petalled one.

That's the way nature has evolved it,

whereas that's the way people have bred it.

What about things like the begonia?

Something like that would be producing no nectar.

Once they've been as highly bred as that, there's nothing there at all.

Would you like to do it yourself in your own garden?

-Yeah, that'd be great. Excellent. Thank you.

-Have some tubes...

-OK.

As Mary begins her own experiments in her garden, I'm about to meet someone

who has been studying and assessing her own back garden in scientific detail for over 40 years.

-Hello, there.

-Hello.

-Sorry about the welcoming committee!

'Jennifer Owen is an entomologist who lives in Leicester.

'I've come to find out more about her pretty but very average back garden

'that proved just how valuable all our gardens could be for wildlife.'

When we first moved into this house

and started looking at the garden in 1972,

we realised the garden had a lot of possibilities.

I ran a trap called a malaise trap with a pitched roof

made of netting, which captures flying insects,

but I also hand-netted butterflies, sank pit-fall traps

all around the garden to catch beetles and centipedes.

A whole range of different things.

And what did you find?

Some small wasps which were new to the British Isles,

and one or two which were new species to science.

I've identified more than 400 species of beetle in this garden.

-400?!

-But they're all visiting different things.

-That's absolutely extraordinary.

In over 40 years, Jennifer identified and recorded

more than 8,000 different types of insect in her garden.

Amazingly, that's about a third of the range of insect species we have in the UK.

It proved once and for all that our gardens, planted in the right way,

COULD become mini-nature reserves.

No-one had done this sort of continuous operation for so long,

particularly not in a suburban garden.

So, it was the continuity of the record that was particularly interesting,

because it was possible to see how butterflies, hoverflies and ladybirds and so on,

gradually, over the years, the numbers have gone down and down.

By the early '90s, Jennifer's study clearly highlighted the declines in our insects,

and this came to the attention of the then presenter of Gardeners' World, Geoff Hamilton.

This is the exciting bit...

-Oh!

-There! Like insect soup!

-How on earth do you identify this lot?

-It's largely a question of experience...

Clearly, Jennifer had a profound influence on how he gardened,

which, in turn, affected millions of viewers,

who began to alter their attitude to plants and wildlife in their gardens.

But what I wanted to know after all this time was,

what are Jennifer's simples rules on how to plant a garden for wildlife?

Be sympathetic and relaxed about wildlife, not thinking,

-"It's got too many legs, I'll kill it." It doesn't do!

-No.

Having met Jennifer, it's completely reinforced the message to me,

which is, as gardeners, we can make a massive difference.

We really can, and we can't ignore that fact, and actually,

if we all do a little, we can have a big impact.

It wouldn't be difficult for all of us to be more relaxed about gardening

and choose less fussy flowers, and that would be brilliant for insects.

But on a wet and windy morning in Harrogate,

Mary and Caroline have volunteered

to help plant out the summer bedding displays, including my two trial beds

of nectar- and pollen-rich plants, in the most high-profile area of the town - West Park Stray.

-There we are.

-Thank you.

-You want to start at the pointy end?

-I will.

Caroline and Mary loved the subtle colours at Chelsea,

but it was too late to change the colour scheme for this trial year,

so it's Patrick's traditional yellow and red for now.

Nervous, in case we get ticked off for not having done it quite right!

They're professionals, and when ours start dying off

before everybody else's, that'll be the grim moment.

Double begonias and pelargoniums have been swapped

for insect friendly single red dahlias, rudbeckias and angelicas -

not as radical a change as I'd hoped, but if it impresses the judges,

then maybe more widespread changes will come.

Will we pass, or would you like to dis-employ us immediately?!

-Another two, shall I get you them?

-Yes, thank you very much.

One there and one there, yes.

Fired up by the research I've gathered, I've decided to tackle the gardening industry next.

I want to put to them the question that Mary first posed

about how to choose the right plants for pollinators.

I'm at the National Plant Show, a trade event

that brings together nurseries, garden centres, growers and suppliers

from across the country - a perfect opportunity

to try and get the industry on board with my campaign.

Hello, everybody. Good afternoon, on this lovely day...

'I've brought together an expert team - Dr Jeff Ollerton,

'Helen Bostock from the RHS, and Doug Stewart,

'a freelance marketing specialist in horticulture,

'to help me convince players in the industry that what we need to make it easier for gardeners

'is a simple labelling system.'

There's increasing acknowledgement of the role both gardens

and garden plants have in supporting these pollinating insects.

But, as you might imagine, with over 70,000 plants in the RHS Plant Finder,

gardeners need all the help they can get in choosing the right plants.

When it was suggested that we did something as simple as put a logo

that says you need to plant these if you want to help pollinating insects -

it was one of those eureka moments - why haven't we done it?!

I think it was one of the most exciting innovations for our industry in the last few years.

Thank you very much.

It was very good - it was VERY good.

As we keep finding, we push on a door and it opens wide.

It's like people are waiting to be galvanised,

and to give them some kind of structure of how to act, which is truly fantastic.

It's clear the industry is open to the idea of a pollinator friendly label,

and it seems Harrogate's Britain In Bloom group are open to change, too,

so it really feels like I'm getting somewhere now. In fact, there's no stopping Mary.

She's one of my main campaign supporters in Harrogate,

and is taking science into her garden by doing her own nectar testing

to see what her garden flowers have on offer.

When you start, you're poking these glass capillaries into the flower.

You don't know if you're doing it right, or it hasn't got any nectar,

or, what I deduced after the first 24 hours when I wasn't getting anything,

is that the bees have got in there first and sucked the flowers dry.

So, I found this in my cupboard upstairs -

it might have had potpourri in it -

this organza drawstring bag, which I put around it for 48 hours,

which isolates it, lets the air circulate,

and I can keep the bees off, giving me a good chance to test the nectar.

With the bees no longer affecting her results,

Mary's been pushing the glass tubes into all sorts of different flowers

and taking readings.

We have an annual musk mallow that pops up - it really smells of honey.

That was 71%. Then you've got these other ones in the 50s.

The pink hebe round the corner, 66.

So there's real variation. And just out of curiosity,

to work out what the numbers mean, I was testing things in the house.

A cup of tea with some milk and two sugars is 7%.

The juice on the top of the raspberry jam, if you haven't stirred it,

that's 63%, so if you imagine, the nectar in things like the hebe

is sweeter than a jar of raspberry jam.

That gives some indication of the scale.

The insects are fantastic to study, if you like wildlife in your garden.

You can actually get very close. Just a simple little digital camera,

it's very easy to go in and get some really nice shots.

It's a bit like being Kate Humble, doing Springwatch in your own garden.

Mary's home-grown experiment

is giving her just the sort of encouragement I hoped it would.

In my own garden, I've found out about two separate measures

to improve its attractiveness to insects

AND increase my pollinator friendly score.

But I also want to discover more about what's already here,

so Steve is going to teach me some simple sampling techniques.

Right, we're going to continue the really high-tech sampling techniques

by using things known as yellow tray traps.

-I'm not sure I like those in my garden!

-Well, you like sunflowers -

what's the difference?!

-You've got a piece of cane...

-Mm-hmm.

..one of those things to go on the end so you don't poke your eye out,

and then glued onto that is an extremely sophisticated,

£1.49 for 10, kids' party plate.

Then we push it into the ground, like that,

and top it up with water, and just a tiny bit of detergent,

which kills the surface tension, so any insect will hit it and go plop,

and it will stay in the water - very good for things like flies,

and particularly hoverflies, which are really important pollinators,

which are really hard to catch with a net, I don't know if you've tried.

Well, I've been seeing a few very small ones, and so I hope...

So, it catches things which other techniques might not.

And I think they look very aesthetic in the garden!

We'll see what happens later.

-Now, this is nice, Sarah.

-Because of the long grass?

Yes, and this is a job for you - what do you think this is?

I think you've been stealing from my washing line - it's a pillow case.

Absolutely, it is, and I've taken two coat hangers,

and pulled them out to make a square,

then taping them together, so they're good and strong,

then binding them onto this broom handle using jubilee clips.

Then, finally, you put on a pillow case -

I've just glued it on, but it might be better if you sewed it -

and you've got a fully functional sweep net.

This is quite strong, tougher than an ordinary butterfly net.

I want you to walk through the grass and swish it to and fro,

be quite swift, turning it over at each end,

then we'll see what we've got in the long grass.

-Is that right?

-Yep, plenty of energy, that's it.

-It's good fun, this, I could get into it! Enough?

-Let's see.

We can always carry on... Oh, careful, that's it.

You can fold it over like that, and then it seals the net.

-We'll see what we've got.

-That's...

-That's a little beetle.

-Trying to fly.

-And a moth. Looks like a glorified large clothes moth.

Oh, yeah, I think it might be a thing called a snout moth, actually.

which you find in grass - there it is.

-There's the moth.

-Oh, and another.

There's one flying off. Lots of grass seed and things in there.

-There's a little ground beetle - can you see?

-Yes. Gosh, there's lots!

There's a lot in there, and it's a really simple technique.

Most of us have got small areas around compost heaps or at the base of trees,

where we could have an area of long grass.

Who'd have thought such a basic habitat could be so insect rich?

-So, here we are.

-Yes, with our...

-Our strange yellow trays!

-They've all caught stuff, haven't they?

-Yes.

-Of course the downside is that they drown.

-Yeah.

So I wouldn't want people who are just interested in seeing what they've got in the garden

-to use this technique very often.

-So, that is definitely a hoverfly, isn't it?

-Yes, it is.

Very handsome, like a little wasp, almost,

but you can see it's only got two wings.

I'm pleased to see that, because one thing I'm really aware of

-is that hoverflies and hard to notice, unlike bees and wasps.

-Mmm.

But they are fantastic pollinators, aren't they?

With the decline of bees in some parts of the world,

-they're probably becoming more important.

-How do we attract them in?

-They like yellow?

-Well, quite clearly, they like yellow, yes.

But they feed from the same sort of plants as bees do,

but they seem particularly besotted by the yellow ones.

The humble hoverfly is such an important pollinator.

Even though it looks wasp-like, it's completely harmless.

Like all our pollinators, they need our help.

We've got hundreds of species of these jewel-like insects in the UK.

If you want lots of them in your garden,

plant lots of single flowers with bright-yellow centres,

as these are the ones they particularly love.

After months of planning and planting,

Harrogate has been primped and preened ready for the judges.

After visiting Chelsea and listening to my advice,

some of the planting has at least been made more insect friendly in a couple of the flower beds.

It's not exactly revolution here,

but I'm hoping it's a step in the right direction.

Right, we'll start at West Park beds, the biodiversity beds...

It's an experiment, and I'm sensing everyone is a bit nervous

about what they've signed up for.

Harrogate is trying to maintain its gold medal-winning status

in the Champion of Champions category of Britain In Bloom.

It can be altered to try to encourage nectar-rich plants,

which encourage the hoverflies, bumblebees and other insects.

-It's working, yes.

-It is.

To the untrained eye, the insect friendly planting doesn't look that different,

but take a close-up look at the single dahlias, rudbeckias and angelica.

-They are literally teeming with pollinators.

-It's fascinating.

What's very noticeable is the insect life that we've got,

and when you walk further down, you'll see the lack of it.

Two of my staff the other day said, "It's amazing!

"We just walked up, and there's nothing until you get to these beds,

"and then they're just covered." That was on a dull day.

-Just look across it, you can see the difference it's making.

-Wonderful.

For people who had been a little wary, it was very cheering to hear their comments.

Patrick seems almost evangelical about the benefits of the two pollinator friendly beds.

I wonder if he thinks it's his trump card to win a gold?

My two original supporters, however, seem a bit less sure.

Mary feels it's definitely done its job, as far as the hoverflies

and the bees, and everything, but she's a bit worried

about whether it has the impact, colour-wise, cos it's a bit subdued...

-It's not VERY subdued.

-No - but for Harrogate...that's subdued.

It's subdued, OK!

I like this... I know Sarah's not going to like the double beg...

But they give a wonderful impact, in terms of colour.

If we'd have gone for the biodiversity bed right the way down,

it would have been green through to the end of next month.

'I really thought I'd won Mary over, but I think she's worried

'that for the judges, it's all about colour and impact.

'But I still think I can make the case for both,

'with the pollinator-friendly planting schemes.'

We are trying to win this thing, if at all possible!

We'd like to get your message over, but we'd like gold, as well.

'If the judging criteria was tweaked and Bloom groups

'were encouraged to try a different range of pollinator-friendly plants

'rather than the traditional bedding types,

'Britain In Bloom could be the perfect launch pad to change the way the nation plants,

'so I need to tackle the RHS Bloom judges.'

It just seems to me there isn't a real incentive

for the bedding schemes, particularly, to move away

from the more traditional doubles which have zero insect interest.

And the RHS and the Britain In Bloom are the most perfectly positioned body to have impact,

because you influence every bedding scheme throughout these islands.

A lot of authorities are beginning to introduce more sustainable planting.

A lot of that sustainable planting is very bee and wildlife-friendly.

So there is some move. The other thing you must take into consideration

is that a lot of the public like to see the wow factor

that you really get from some of the current bedding plants.

I agree, but I would still suggest that a well designed singles bed

is going to have just the same wow factor.

I just really, really passionately feel that if it's well designed and well thought out,

and to start the ball rolling down the hill,

the RHS Britain In Bloom campaign is the perfect place to start.

There's a possibility of something in that direction happening,

no doubt about it. I couldn't believe

the hoverflies and the bees that were there. You didn't put them there for us!

No, I didn't come in with a net and release them!

Or a beehive round the corner!

But it was striking, it was imposing,

so there are different angles to look at it,

but I'm sure it will take off tomorrow,

cos there'll be people thinking, "If that's gonna win 'em something, we must have a crack, as well!"

From those reactions, at least one of the judges has been persuaded, but Harrogate will have to wait

a few months for the awards ceremony in September

to see if their strategy of sticking mainly with their Victorian bedding tradition was the right decision.

Back at Perch Hill, I'm continuing my own insect audit.

Steve set up a moth trap and left it overnight,

and now's it's time to discover what it's caught.

This is one of the most exciting bits about being a garden naturalist

because you walk up to this weird little Tardis box and you don't know what's going to be there.

But you often see things around the outside... Ah!

That looks like a stick.

-And that's what it's trying to do. That's a buff tip moth.

-No!

-Is that really a moth?

-It's a moth, absolutely.

Oh, my God, that's most extraordinary...

Most fantastic camouflage you could ask for, really, isn't it?

I think we might have something nice here, as well.

This just unclips...

And we've got some good stuff in here!

We've got a large elephant hawk moth!

-Oh, my God, that's beautiful!

-Fantastic!

Wow, that's just incredible! In a way, butterfly eat your heart out!

It's subtle, yet so exquisite.

You'd think things that fly at night wouldn't be colourful like this,

but many of them are.

-And...we've got a poplar hawk moth!

-Oh, my God,

look at these beautiful things!

-Absolutely wonderful.

-Is that another hawk moth?

-Yes.

-I'm going to become a hawk moth obsessive.

-A hawk-moth-ologist, yes!

-Have I got 10 out of 10 now?

Nobody ever gets 10 out of 10. You've got 9.5. THEY LAUGH

The thing that the moth trap has made me realise is -

just as Jennifer Owen's study proved -

the potential to attract and support a great variety of pollinating insects in our gardens is huge.

In Birmingham, it's the Britain In Bloom awards ceremony,

and Harrogate are about to discover what medal they've won this year.

Well, let's not keep the suspense any longer than necessary...

'It's the moment of truth for Harrogate - have they got that all-important gold?'

And now to Yorkshire, where Harrogate...

have achieved a silver-gilt award.

CHEERING

Come on, Patrick, we've got to be honest, we don't go into these

without wanting to win a gold,

so silver-gilt is second best, isn't it?

To not get what we've aimed for, which was the gold,

is heart-wrenching. To coin a phrase,

-gutted, that's the phrase I'd use, I really am disappointed.

-Yeah.

Disappointment for Harrogate with only a silver-gilt.

So what's gone wrong for them this year?

The champion of champions is about the very, very best,

and when you're comparing the best with the best you actually nit pick,

so it's a really, really tough campaign, in that sense.

And although the bedding was very colourful,

there was blandness about it.

So it would seem that Harrogate's traditional bedding

just isn't enough to achieve gold anymore,

but did the pollinator-friendly flower beds have any impact on the judges?

There was no doubt about it, when you filmed us

and we stood there by all these hoverflies and bees,

it was very, very impressive,

and I think that that'll be a great message to a lot of people -

I think they need to be a little bit more adventurous in what they do,

and they don't want to keep putting the same thing in the beds all the way around.

'So the judges' comments suggest that what's needed in Harrogate

'is some innovation, and actually, my insect-friendly flower beds seem to have gone down well.

'I just hope that the loss of their gold medal status

'doesn't mean that Harrogate lose heart, and that they have the courage to change

'and plant more nectar and pollen rich flower displays next year.'

It's May, and year two of my campaign,

and at home, I'm turning my most sheltered, south-facing garden at Perch Hill

into a nectar rich oasis devoted to insect pollinators.

There's already a gread backbone of plants in the garden,

but I want to enhance it by adding flowers that bees and butterflies go crazy for.

So today I'm planting Cirsium thistles, Echinaceas,

single Dahlias, and blue Scabious,

and throughout the year, I'll be putting in even more to ensure a rich and varied

flow of pollen and nectar right into late autumn.

I've been in discussion with the Royal Horticultural Society

over the last year, and tried to persuade them to really look at

pollinator-friendly plants and label them,

and I've just heard that they are going to do it

and they're going to launch it at the Chelsea Flower Show,

and I'm going to go and help them launch it.

So it is absolutely brilliant,

you couldn't have a better place to get everybody - the press, the public - really interested.

It's a very, very exciting result.

A few weeks later, I'm at the Chelsea Flower Show,

and it's the launch of our brand-new Perfect For Pollinators logo and label -

a joint initiative supported

by both the Horticultural Trades Association and the RHS.

Good morning, everybody. I'm Roger Williams,

head of science at the RHS.

Thanks for turning up

for this launch of the RHS Perfect For Pollinators logo.

The new logo will be used in nurseries and garden centres throughout the UK to draw

attention to the best plants for pollinating insects,

and if you scan the specially developed labels with a smart phone,

you're linked, via the internet, to a season-by-season list of insect-friendly plants.

If we could, in every single garden centre throughout the country,

have plants labelled really clearly as to which are useful for insects,

it could really help our insect populations, particularly the pollinator insects.

Getting the RHS involved

was something I really wanted from the start.

They have backed it in such a definite way, and the Horticultural Trade Association,

and I feel really proud.

It is really nice...releasing these butterflies at Chelsea.

I've also been invited with Helen Bostock from the RHS

to chat to Alan Titchmarsh about the label and logo on the TV coverage of Chelsea.

If we look for this label - I shall wear it now -

and go around my garden centre looking for things with this on,

just to remember that there's something there,

not only to feed ourselves and our eyes,

but to feed the insects. You're confident we can make a difference?

We really, as gardeners, can make a massive difference.

We can get Britain buzzing again.

That was a really important moment.

If I'm trying to get the message out to lots of people,

there's no better place to do it than at Chelsea with Alan Titchmarsh,

who is broadcasting to maybe four million gardeners.

The combination of that and launching the label this morning - fantastic.

A few months after the excitement of Chelsea, I'm back in Harrogate.

The disappointment of last year's medal result could have meant the end to my campaign.

But it's immediately clear

that they've not allowed judges' comments to dampen their spirit.

We have embraced, if you like, the philosophy of what you have been trying to work with us on,

trying to provide a more diverse environment within that town centre.

That's what we've done, we've taken it forward from there.

I'm not bothered if the RHS or the judges like what we're doing,

I'm more bothered whether the community like it

and whether we will make that difference.

It's the residents, it's the visitors, it's Harrogate that we are pleasing.

I was a bit sceptical when we started.

I put my hand up to that, but we gave it a shot.

The proof is in the pudding, if you like.

We've shown that we can do good bedding displays,

introduce a biodiverse area without losing the quality and the colour.

I'd invite any local authorities to come along

and see what we're doing, come and talk to us.

-We are going to carry on, no two ways about it.

-That is so great.

'Patrick's new approach is to blend nectar-rich plants

'through the bedding displays on roundabouts and prominent areas throughout the town.

'Around 30% of the beds feature nectar and pollen-rich plants

'and clearly the change is being appreciated

by all sorts of pollinating insects.

'But even bigger changes

'to Harrogate's traditional planting schemes

'are being introduced in the famous Valley Gardens, starting with a project Mary has set up,

'to get more nectar-rich flowers in gardens across the town.'

This was a little project that I dreamt up over the winter.

It was just to encourage people in Harrogate to put nectar-rich plants in their own back garden.

I sent away for a kilogram of this meadow mix seed and decanted it all

into these individual bags, nearly 2,000 of them...

Packaged them all up and then we gave them out to local gardeners who gave them to their friends,

and Patrick had agreed to put a sample of them here in the gardens.

I thought it'd be quite nice to do a demonstration so people coming through

could see it, and then it could continue in future years,

people going, "We want some of that".

So the equivalent of this is in loads and loads of back gardens throughout the town?

That's right.

'I'm really bowled over by the sheer amount of nectar

and pollen-rich planting.

'Many areas now feature displays of pollinator-friendly herbaceous perennials,

'a clear change to what's gone before.

'Even the ultra-traditional Dahlia border is proudly supporting my campaign

'with the introduction of some single, nectar rich varieties.

'And if Caroline Bayliss has her way,

'it could mean a pollinator friendly future for all of Harrogate's planting schemes.'

18 months isn't very long to change

what has probably been going on here for the last 15 years.

I think what we're doing is really exciting.

Very lucky, because I happen to have become the Cabinet member for parks.

That is just so brilliant.

It's like we have got somebody in the campaign right on the centre.

I'd like to think, yes.

'This is an incredible result,

'as Caroline's new role as cabinet member for parks on the town council

'means that she can really influence the planting across the town.

'But the flower bed that could become a template for the future

'is one that Chelsea Flower Show designer

'Paul Hervey-Brookes has designed for Harrogate.'

Beautiful as the bedding here might be, it's not doing a lot for wildlife.

Whereas, our new beds, helped by my Chelsea designer, are alive,

as you can see, and I think, far more beautiful.

It could be something to do with the colours.

-Yes, softer colours.

-Much softer.

But there's no arguing that there's

very little insect activity on that,

whereas even from here, I can see butterflies and bees absolutely teeming.

And there is an interpretation board which will explain to the public

why we're doing this, so hopefully they will take those ideas home

and put them in their own gardens.

Harrogate's new planting really deserves a pollinator-friendly gold medal,

but for my campaign to be truly effective I need Bloom groups

across the country to take on board the same changes

to their bedding schemes, and the RHS

to really push the pollinator friendly planting agenda

right to the fore of the competition.

So I've invited Sue Biggs the Director General of the RHS,

to Perch Hill to ask for her support.

Do you think there is a chance that pollinated plants might be

higher up the RHS agenda,

the Britain In Bloom agenda, really, next year?

We're completely behind everything you're doing. It is really fantastic.

As far as the judging next year is concerned,

that's under review. This year's competition hasn't finished yet, but it's already under review,

and absolutely, now, we have got this logo,

we are pursuing this out, not only through the plant centres across the country,

but also on our website.

Everybody can have a look at all the pollinator-friendly plants,

and we would ask, as you would ask,

that not only does everyone in the country plant more of these,

but yes, we will be looking at the judging criteria next year for Britain In Bloom.

I feel that you could be doing even more in that department

at getting that message out.

Yes, and we would love to invite you to come to National Gardening Week next year,

because the we will be announcing lots of exciting changes

that really will make sure that everybody throughout the country really does do more.

Oh, really? So there's something you've got up your sleeve?

Yes, but I can't tell you until next April when it's National Gardening Week. I will tell you then.

It's exciting talk from the RHS director general,

and with Sue's support,

I'm confident that next year Britain In Bloom will be putting the needs of our pollinating insects

right at the top of their agenda.

The lessons I've learnt from experts along the way

have also become a top priority in my own pollinator oasis.

The nectar garden has been such a great addition to Perch Hill,

it's become a haven for us but also a haven for the pollinators.

As I'm sitting here, there's just incredible, lovely, buzzing tones.

Wherever you look around, every flower seems to be full with

a honey bee or I hover fly or a bumble bee.

It's coming to a real crescendo now with July and August in mind.

Sitting amongst all these pollinating insects,

it would be easy to assume that there isn't a problem,

but both nationally and globally, as their natural habitats decrease,

every garden and flower bed really counts.

I feel so incredibly encouraged and proud at what Harrogate have done.

It was just wonderful to see that a third of their bedding schemes

now have nectar and pollen-rich plants within them.

What I'm very excited by is that the RHS just have absolutely

got behind the idea of trying to get the word out through horticultural trade

to gardeners who are going to garden centres as to

what to buy that is good for nectar and pollen, and what is not so good.

I also feel really encouraged by meeting

the director-general of the RHS.

The Britain In Bloom marking scheme needs to be looked at.

It is good already, it is green already,

but it could have even better benefits for pollinators.

I feel she has really got it.

That is an absolute triumph.

Next week, in the final programme of this series,

I take my campaign into cities,

to prove that nectar-rich planting is good for pollinators and people alike,

and convincing those in charge of cities to play their part, too.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd