However many nectar plants you add to your borders to attract butterflies, there will always be a few that have their own specific requirements. One of these is the brimstone, that sulphur yellow harbinger of spring. Second brood adults are around now (don’t confuse them with clouded yellows!) but this garden has always been a poor place for brimstones, in sharp contrast to the Oxfordshire garden where they were very common. Early on I planted alder buckthorn here, one of their preferred larval food plants, in a little sheltered group near a hedge in the hope that spring females might find them and a colony would get going here, but to date no obvious luck. A beautiful male brimstone in the garden a couple of days ago makes me think it still might happen.
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About wildlifegardening
Jenny Steel was a Plant Ecologist at Oxford University before becoming a writer. She has more than 20 years experience of writing about and teaching ecology, natural history and wildlife gardening. She is also a photographer, journalist and former plant nursery owner, and a lecturer and tutor in adult education. She has appeared on a variety of radio and television programmes including Gardener’s World with Alan Titchmarsh, and she presented a series of items on the BBC 2 gardening show, How Does Your Garden Grow. She has worked with and written for a variety of organisations including the Royal Horticultural Society, Natural England, Atropos, Ernest Charles, the Adult Residential Colleges Association (ARCA), Haiths, Usborne Books, Complete Gardens, Oxfordshire County Council, the charity Growing Native and several of the Wildlife Trusts. She is also the Garden Bird Guru for the wild bird food company JustAddBirds of which she was a co-founder. The Emmy Award winning film company Panache Productions are currently making a film about her wildlife garden in South Shropshire. She has written 10 books on wildlife gardening. Her website can be found at www.wildlife-gardening.co.uk and her bird food company at www.JustAddBirds.co.uk
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