Shade is not a problem to be solved

Most advice about attracting bees and butterflies assumes a sun-baked herbaceous border. In reality, many of us garden beneath mature trees, along north-facing walls, or in the narrow strip between a fence and a hedge — places that see only a few hours of direct light, or none at all. That is no reason to give up on pollinators. Shade simply asks you to choose different plants and to think more carefully about shelter, water and undisturbed ground.

It helps to know what kind of shade you have. Dappled shade, where light flickers through a canopy of birch, rowan or apple, is the most generous: the ground stays cooler and damper than in full sun, and flowers last longer without scorching. Dry shade beneath a mature beech, sycamore or conifer is the hardest condition in any garden, because the tree roots take both light and moisture. Cool shade on a north or east-facing wall sits somewhere in between. Plant honestly for the conditions you actually have, and the rewards are quietly remarkable — a good shady garden can be one of the busiest places in the country for bees, hoverflies and moths.

Choose nectar-rich flowers for dappled light

Double flowers, however pretty, usually offer little or nothing to pollinators. In shade, single, open, nectar-rich flowers are worth their weight in gold. Aim for a succession that runs from February to November.

• Spring: lungwort, hellebores, epimedium, primrose and cowslip, wood anemone, honesty and bluebells. Lungwort is a genuine lifeline for queen bumblebees emerging from hibernation.
• Early summer: foxgloves, columbine, sweet rocket, comfrey and hardy geraniums such as Geranium phaeum. Foxgloves are the classic woodland flower, and bumblebees work each spike from the bottom upwards.
• High summer: astrantia, astilbe, meadowsweet and the taller campanulas, which carry bees through the shadiest weeks of the year.
• Autumn: Japanese anemones, hardy fuchsia and flowering ivy. Ivy is one of the single best plants for late bees, hoverflies, red admirals and commas.
• Evening: honeysuckle, night-scented tobacco and evening primrose, all of which feed moths — and moths are pollinators too.

Where a shaft of sun does reach the ground, plant densely and use pale flowers and variegated foliage to bounce what light there is back into the border.

Plant in layers and let things self-seed

Structure matters as much as nectar. A shrub layer of viburnum, mahonia or cotoneaster gives shelter from wind and rain, and climbers on a north wall — honeysuckle, ivy, climbing hydrangea — offer both cover and food. Beneath them, allow foxgloves, honesty, forget-me-nots and sweet rocket to seed themselves about. They will find the spots that suit them far better than you will.

Resist the urge to hoe everything clean in spring. A little gentle mulching is fine, but leave seedlings where they land, thin them rather than clear them, and let the border knit together. Dense planting keeps the soil cool and damp, which is exactly what a shady garden needs.

Leave the leaf litter alone

This is the single most valuable thing you can do for wildlife in a shady garden. Most of our butterflies and moths spend the winter as eggs, caterpillars or pupae among fallen leaves, in hollow stems and in the litter at the base of hedges. If you tidy it all away in October, you tidy away next summer's butterflies.

• Rake leaves under hedges and shrubs and leave them there as a shallow, self-feeding mulch.
• Leave seed heads and hollow stems standing through winter, and cut back in late March or April rather than in autumn.
• Keep a small log pile in a quiet corner, and leave a patch of bare, undisturbed soil where solitary bees can nest.

Shallow water for thirsty pollinators

Bees need water, particularly in hot spells, and they cannot drink from anything deep or steep-sided. A saucer of water with pebbles, moss or corks in it gives them somewhere safe to land and sip. Set it at ground level among the planting, out of the wind, and top it up every few days in dry weather.

Butterflies are different: they rarely drink from open water, preferring to mud-puddle, taking salts and minerals from damp ground. So leave one small patch of bare, shady earth and keep it gently damp, or sink a shallow tray of wet sand near the border. If you have a pond, give it a sloping edge or a few stones at the margin so that anything that falls in can climb out.

Slow gardening for a shady corner

Shade gardens reward patience more than effort. Spend your first season simply watching: notice where the sun actually lands and at what hour, which plants the bees return to, where the soil stays damp and where it dries out. Then add your water saucer and your leaf pile now, and build up the planting over two or three years.

Do less, and observe more. A shady corner planted with single, nectar-rich flowers, left slightly untidy through winter, and given a shallow dish of water, will hum with life by midsummer — and it will ask very little of you beyond the willingness to sit still and let it get on with things.