Great shapes

Val looks at how different flower shapes attract insects

- Val Bourne

THE great thing about being a natural gardener and eschewing all that chemical jollop is that you get more insect life in your garden. And it’s fascinating to watch, so I deliberately cater for insect life.

I always grow red valerian (Centranthus ruber) along the south-facing wall of the cottage, especially for my hummingbird hawk-moths (Macroglossum stellatarum). Valerian is their favourite and I love to watch them circling the flowers as they seem to travel in a clockwise direction as they extend their proboscises and suck up the nectar.

Red and pink-flowered valerian seems more popular than white-flowered, but we also grow the mauve Moroccan valerian Centranthus lecoqii, which is popular, too. We rate our summer days according to the number of hummingbird hawk moths seen all at once, and spotting four moths is a great day. Hummingbird hawk-moths fly in the day and I also get silver Y moths (Autographa gamma) in daylight, too. I deadhead the valerian to promote more flowers and lessen the seedlings.