There is always a dilemma when creating a garden, however large or small your outdoor space is. It’s a tricky balance to achieve – do you leave it messy and let nature come to you, or plant exotic species found abroad for an aesthetic appeal? 

Well, there are ways, if you have the right knowledge, to take the best of both worlds and attract countless critters and even something rare. I have often seen gardens with no consideration for supporting nature, whose space is merely filled with an endless sea of concrete slabs or artificial grass, so planting anything is a start. Hopefully, once you’ve finished reading this, you’ll have a far greater understanding of what makes a garden ‘wild’.

A couple of years ago, my grandparents acquired some extra land at the back of their coastal dwelling in Gorleston. My nan has always prided herself, and rightly so, on how her garden looks, and immediately set to work planting bulbs. But this time she did something a little different: she took a small area of just a few square metres and ‘threw in’ some wildflower seed. Two springs on, it is teeming with colourful flowers and humming with the sound of bees. It has beautiful sapphire cornflowers, carmine-red poppies and spindly, moss-like whorls of love-in-a-mist, and more. 

Despite the fact that half the things here aren’t UK natives, they’ve still conjured a huge range of insects. Bees and butterflies are attracted to materials which glow in ultraviolet light, such as daisies. Sometimes the most attractive flowers are those from abroad, and if you want to encourage a healthy, biodiverse community, then occasionally importing is a good plan. That being said, it's best to steer well clear of invasives such as rhododendron and grow indigenous alternatives.

There are certain species which are such unequivocal magnets for invertebrates that leaving them out of a garden is essentially a naturalist’s heresy. The most obvious and ultimate example is buddleja: unparalleled in its seemingly magical powers over the minds of butterflies! I cannot express enough how much this will turn the tables on your garden’s success. 

Another much overlooked or even despised example is the nettle, but I wouldn’t worry about planting these as I’m sure they’ll naturally colonise in no time. Despite their poor but in some ways fair reputation, providing hikers with pain and obstacles alike, nettle leaves provide food for the larvae of many nymphalid butterflies like the fast-declining small tortoiseshell. Most of the nymphalids being rather mobile and not restricted to specific habitats, your nettle patch should be colonized very quickly, but often subtly. It’s worth searching nettle leaves for jet-black caterpillars studded with white - if you see these, then surely you’re doing something right!

This list is a long way from exhaustive, and anything with anthers (the part of a stamen that contains pollen) gets some attention from insects. A good tip is that just planting things is rarely the solution. Leaving a small patch of garden fallow (untouched) can allow for ancient seeds to rise to the top by weathering. This can be far more helpful if your desire is to keep your garden full of natives and local specialties, as the original species from that habitat will be first to flower and thrive in that bit of land. 

I live in the Claylands of South Norfolk, and the acre of rewilding land we own was previously sown with a gritty, persistent crop of perennial rye-grass. It’s taken all of 5 years to get rid of that species (which drains resources to such an extent that it lets nothing else grow there), so although this can be a controversial opinion and I’m sure many others disagree, it can be wise to cut grass short in the autumn if there aren’t any other species growing in it. Once other natives colonise through seed dispersal, and you can clearly see a good number of shoots of wildflowers breaking through, then stop mowing until around August. 

Winter mowing can stop grass growth and allow for quick development of orchid rosettes if you’re lucky enough to have them. I am overjoyed at the changes we've seen on our lawn. Five years ago, when we bought the house, our lawn was a monoculture of grass, but this summer it is a glorious smorgasbord (as Michaela Strachan would say) of selfheal, bee orchids, daisies, buttercups and even the scarce thyme-leaved speedwell.

My very last, and most important, tip is to avoid using chemically-based pesticides. Take patios for example: the cracks between stone slabs provide a habitat very similar to mountainsides, and so lots of species of plant rarely seen locally can colonise by widespread seed dispersal. When left to grow of their own accord, pavements can provide a haven for rarities far from their strongholds. 

Recently, I found a colony of Jersey cudweed plants (once thought extinct in Britain but now beginning to root themselves in SE England) on a patio in East Norfolk. I took a quadrant survey, which estimated the presence of an incredible 158 individuals. For a once indescribably restricted species, triple figures show that when given space to flourish, everything bounces back to create a tiny microbiome of life. 

If only we take the time to look, a whole new world opens up.