Wildflower Plants A to Z
So, you're keen to get your wildflower garden growing and you know exactly what colour scheme you'd like and what type of wildlife you'd like attract. Buying individual wildflower plants is one of the best ways to do it if you'd prefer a more curated look to your garden.
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Hedge Cranesbill is a sublime, showy species of wildflower, its lobed petals a perfect palette of glowing pink and mellow purple, often with darker-coloured veins. This fuchsia firework of a flower is long-flowering and hardy, meaning it’ll grace your garden for a long time.
- Type: Perennial
- Height: 20–45cm.
- Flowers: April-May
- Soil Requirement: Well-drained
- Light Requirement: Partial shade
- Natural Habitat: Meadows, woodlands, road verges
- Also known as: Hedgerow Cranesbill, Mountain Cranesbill
Plants for Pollinators highlights plants selected by the RHS as scientifically proven to tackle the declines in bees, butterflies and other pollinators.
The Meadow Cranesbill gets its name from its attractive, beak-like seed pods, but no bird could match the beauty of this flower's veined violet petals mixed with blue growing in pairs on tall, forked stems. Easy to naturalise and attractive to bees and butterflies, the sky's the limit with this wildflower!
- Type: Perennial
- Height: 60-100cm.
- Flowers: June-September
- Soil Requirement: Well-drained
- Light Requirement: Full sun or partial shade
- Natural Habitat: Meadows, road verges
- Also known as: Crowfoot, Meadow Geranium
Plants for Pollinators highlights plants selected by the RHS as scientifically proven to tackle the declines in bees, butterflies and other pollinators.
Although its clustered spikelets trimmed with miniature magenta florets are now grown more as an ornamental plant, Crested Dogstail was once grown to be used to make bonnets. An important food plant for multiple species of butterflies, and works wonderfully in a wildmeadow mix, as it's exceptionally hardy- able to survive drought and cold and remain green throughout winter.
- Type: Perennial
- Height: 30–75cm.
- Flowers: May-June
- Soil Requirement: Moist but well-drained
- Light Requirement: Full sun or partial shade
- Natural Habitat: Meadows, grasslands
- Also known as: Dog's Grass, Dog's Tail Grass, Windlestraw
Plants for Pollinators highlights plants selected by the RHS as scientifically proven to tackle the declines in bees, butterflies and other pollinators.
Appearance-wise, the Common Daisy’s nothing crazy, with a ruffle of thin white petals, sometimes tinged pink, framing a central crown of tiny yellow florets. But love it or love it not, this famous flora is certainly robust, hardy and long-flowering, meaning its classic, cheery charm will shine in a lawn, bed or meadow for quite some time.
- Type: Perennial
- Height: 5–10cm.
- Flowers: All year
- Soil Requirement: Moist or well-drained
- Light Requirement: Full sun or partial shade
- Natural Habitat: Meadows, woodlands, road verges
- Also known as: Bone Flower, Goose Flower, Luckin Gowan
Plants for Pollinators highlights plants selected by the RHS as scientifically proven to tackle the declines in bees, butterflies and other pollinators.
Though it shares the same narrow, pearly white petals radiating from central sunny yellow florets, the Ox-Eye Daisy is much larger than the typical lawn daisy, with flower heads growing up to 5cm wide. A robust flower with classic charm, and perfect for pollinators to boot.
- Type: Perennial
- Height: 30-60cm.
- Flowers: May-August
- Soil Requirement: Well-drained
- Light Requirement: Full sun
- Natural Habitat: Meadows, road verges
- Also known as: Marguerite, Pretty Maids, Dog Daisy
With its clusters of uniquely vivid lilac petals with bursts of white, the Dames-Violet seems very different to her fellow violets, but bears the same sweet fragrance, which grows stronger in the evenings! A favourite of pollinators, and the dried petals can also be used for potpurri.
- Type: Perennial
- Height: 60-90cm
- Flowers: May-August
- Soil requirement: Moist but well-drained
- Light requirement: Full sun or partial shade
- Natural habitat: Hedgerows, wood edges, wasteground
- Also known as: Damask, Queen's Gilliflower, Sweet Rocket,
Plants for Pollinators highlights plants selected by the RHS as scientifically proven to tackle the declines in bees, butterflies and other pollinators.
This well-known wildflower provides proudly blazing bursts of golden petals in springtime landscapes! Hardy, easy-to-grow and wonderful for attracting pollinators, the dandelion's beauty is certainly something to sink your teeth into - in fact, its name originates from “lion’s tooth,” referring to their deeply serrated leaves.
- Type: Perennial
- Height: 10-45cm.
- Flowers: April-May
- Soil Requirement: Well-drained
- Light Requirement: Full sun or partial shade
- Natural Habitat: Meadows, road verges, fields
- Also known as: Bitterwort, Clock Flower, Lion’s Tooth
Plants for Pollinators highlights plants selected by the RHS as scientifically proven to tackle the declines in bees, butterflies and other pollinators.
Everything about this plant appears as soft and sweet as its common nickname, ‘Meadowsweet’: from its long, wispy branches of foaming, peachy-pink and creamy white flowers, down to its strong, sweet aroma. Plant in heavier, loamy soil- perhaps pairing it with other pastel plants for a real display of eye candy!
- Type: Perennial
- Height: 60-90cm
- Flowers: May-August
- Soil Requirement: Moist but well-drained
- Light Requirement: Full sun or partial shade
- Natural Habitat: Woodland verges, roadside verges, damp meadows
- Also known as: Lady’s Belt, Little Queen, Meadowsweet
The Evening Primrose is an easy-to-grow, tall-growing plant that really screams summertime style: its bell-shaped blooms grow in striking shades of yellow, pink and white, and produce a fetching fragrance. As its name suggests, it blooms late in the day, and but seeing the Evening Primrose's floral goblets glowing in the summer sunset is surely a sight to behold.
- Type: Biennial
- Height: 100-150cm.
- Flowers: June-October
- Soil Requirement: Well-drained, sandy
- Light Requirement: Full sun or partial shade
- Natural Habitat: Roadside verges, meadows
- Also known as: Cure-All, Four O’Clock, German Rambion
Here’s a real treat for you: the Feverfew is a small, bushy plant which grows daisy-like flower heads. Its small-but-dense size makes it a perfect potted plant, and though it likes being under the weather in plentiful sunlight, one may try to raise it indoors to best appreciate its strong scent. Highly valued for medicinal uses.
- Type: Perennial
- Height: 15–45cm.
- Flowers: July-September
- Soil Requirement: Well-drained
- Light Requirement: Full sun
- Natural Habitat: Waste lands
- Also known as: Featherfew, Pale Maids
Plants for Pollinators highlights plants selected by the RHS as scientifically proven to tackle the declines in bees, butterflies and other pollinators.
If you're itching for a good pond-side plant, this may be what you need: these branches of bold yellow, daisy-like florets with ray-like petals are the most effective way to place some sunshine in a shady spot, but also has use in repelling invasive insects with its unique scent.
- Type: Perennial
- Height: 30-60cm.
- Flowers: July-September
- Soil Requirement: Moist
- Light Requirement: Full sun or partial shade
- Natural Habitat: Riversides, marshes, ditches
- Also known as: Harvest Flower, Job’s Tears, Pig-Daisy
There is something strangely unforgettable about this flower’s simple-but-unique tiny, baby-blue blooms with rare bursts of pink, and silvery foliage. They’re also perfect for pollinators and have a knack for self-seeding.
- Type: Annual
- Height: 7-25cm.
- Flowers: April-October
- Best Sown: Autumn
- Soil Requirement: Well-drained
- Light Requirement: Full sun
- Natural Habitat: Road-sides, dry grasslands
- Also known as: Blue Mouse-Ear, Scorpion Grass
Plants for Pollinators highlights plants selected by the RHS as scientifically proven to tackle the declines in bees, butterflies and other pollinators.
Now here's a foxy flower- literally! Bearing fuzzy-looking, monarch orange flowers with brush-like edges, with stems covered in black hairs, it's easy to compare this low-maintenance wildflower to a fox leaving its den- and the clusters of new flowers which open beneath it to its shy, newborn litter of cubs!
- Type: Perennial
- Height: 15-30cm
- Flowers: June-September
- Soil requirement: Well-drained
- Light requirement: Full sun or partial shade
- Natural habitat: Meadows, embankments, road verges, stony wasteland
- Also known as: Devil's Paintbrush, Golden Mouse Ear, Grim-the-Collier
Plants for Pollinators highlights plants selected by the RHS as scientifically proven to tackle the declines in bees, butterflies and other pollinators.
Few flowers match the fairy-tale flair of the foxglove: its towering stems of majestic magenta bells feature heavily across myths as a source of healing and protective magic, and a favourite of fairies- we can’t confirm if that’s true, but they are a favourite of bees and butterflies! Best grown in the back of a border to frame other flowers. Make sure to handle with gloves.
- Type: Biennial
- Height: 60–150cm.
- Flowers: June-September
- Soil Requirement: Well-drained
- Light Requirement: Full sun or partial shade
- Natural Habitat: Forest borders, footpaths
- Also known as: Dragon’s Mouth, Fairy Bells, Thimble Flower
Plants for Pollinators highlights plants selected by the RHS as scientifically proven to tackle the declines in bees, butterflies and other pollinators.
Produces pearl white, four-petalled flowers and distinctly toothy heart-shaped leaves which provide the plant its name, as they smell like garlic when crushed. Its leaves are good for culinary usage, but its flowers make an excellent dressing for the garden, with their star-like petals sprinked beneath a bush creating a delectable display.
- Type: Biennial
- Height: 30-80cm.
- Flowers: April-July
- Soil Requirement: Well-Drained
- Light Requirement: Full or partial shade
- Natural Habitat: Woodlands, hedgerows
- Also known as: Jack-By-The-Hedge, Hedge Garlic
Plants for Pollinators highlights plants selected by the RHS as scientifically proven to tackle the declines in bees, butterflies and other pollinators.
Goat's Rue is a medium to tall plant with lilac-to-lavender petals in the shape of small sweetpeas. While it was previously grown readily as forage and medicinal crop, it's nowadays seen as an excellent ornamental plant that is attractive to a variety of insects as a food source.
- Type: Perennial
- Height: 100-150cm.
- Flowers: July to September
- Soil requirement: Moist but well-drained
- Light requirement: Full sun or partial shade
- Natural habitat: Damp meadows, river banks
- Also known as: French Lilac, Professor-Weed, Italian Finch
Plants for Pollinators highlights plants selected by the RHS as scientifically proven to tackle the declines in bees, butterflies and other pollinators.
Haven’t you herd? These buttery-yellow blooms framed by sharp green phyllaries have a lot in common with the famous dandelion, up to its famously fluffy, shiny sandy-silver seed heads later in the season for which they’re named. However, this hardy herb is a lot more showoffish, growing fairly tall in just about any environment. An early bloomer that closes later in the day, but when it blooms, it truly is outstanding in its field!
- Type: Perennial
- Height: 30–90cm.
- Flowers: May-July
- Soil Requirement: Moist or well-drained
- Light Requirement: Full sun or partial shade
- Natural Habitat: Grasslands, meadows, roadsides
- Also known as: Clock Flower, Johnny-Go-To-Bed-At-Noon, Salsifex
Plants for Pollinators highlights plants selected by the RHS as scientifically proven to tackle the declines in bees, butterflies and other pollinators.
Growing tall with distinct, spear shaped and toothy leaves, this whimsical wetland plant has a softer side in its clustered stems of miniature ivory petals, scarlet-spotted lower lips. An excellent plant for pollinators, and makes for a pretty pondside palette!
- Type: Perennial
- Height: 50-100cm.
- Flowers: July-September
- Soil Requirement: Moist
- Light Requirement: Full sun or partial shade
- Natural Habitat: River banks, stream sides
- Also known as: Bugleweed
Plants for Pollinators highlights plants selected by the RHS as scientifically proven to tackle the declines in bees, butterflies and other pollinators.
Though dainty by appearance, these papery bells of blue beauty on slender stalks are actually remarkably resilient to the elements, and thus we recommend that you let this well-loved wildflower run through rockeries, and avoid overcrowding them.
- Type: Perennial
- Height: 15-45cm.
- Flowers: June-September
- Soil Requirement: Well-drained, sandy
- Light Requirement: Full sun
- Natural Habitat: Hillsides, coastal areas,
- Also known as: Cuckoo Shoe, Heath Bells, Scottish Bluebell
Plants for Pollinators highlights plants selected by the RHS as scientifically proven to tackle the declines in bees, butterflies and other pollinators.
In the autumnal gloom, spread some extra sunshine in a marshy environment with these dandelion-like rosettes of glinting gold. Not only is the Autumn Hawkbit long-lived, robust and especially attractive to pollinators, its seeds are also attractive to finches!
- Type: Perennial
- Height: 15-50cm.
- Flowers: July-September
- Soil Requirement: Moist
- Light Requirement: Full sun or partial shade
- Natural Habitat: Grasslands, rocky ridges, pathways.
- Also known as: Fall Dandelion
Plants for Pollinators highlights plants selected by the RHS as scientifically proven to tackle the declines in bees, butterflies and other pollinators.
Though this warm-paletted wildflower's plumes of canary-yellow petals look like that of dandelion, one can tell the Rough Hawkbit apart by their larger heads with shades of red and orange on the outer florets, as well as a pleasing fragrance which helps to bring bees and butterflies to your garden.
- Type: Perennial
- Height: 15-50cm.
- Flowers: June-October
- Soil Requirement: Well-drained, sandy
- Light Requirement: Full sun
- Natural Habitat: Grasslands, rocky ridges, pathways.
- Also known as: Greater Hawkbit
Likely named for its attractive foliage - forming in dense rosettes of mottles maroon leaves - one shouldn’t overlook its brilliant branching stems of yellow, daisy-like blooms, which helps to bring in the pollinators. An excellent ornamental flower which grows well in rockeries, meadows or mixed pots and baskets.
- Type: Perennial
- Height: 15-45cm.
- Flowers: June-September
- Soil Requirement: Well-drained
- Light Requirement: Full sun
- Natural Habitat: Grasslands, quarries
- Also known as: Leopard
Hyssop is a herb related to the mint, with aromatic leaves which are sometimes used for flavouring and medicine. It looks just as sweet, producing spikes of petals from vivid violet to royal blue and even white. A delightful bit of eye candy that's also attractive to pollinators and easy to grow.
- Type: Perennial
- Height: 40-60cm.
- Flowers: July-September
- Soil requirement: Moist or well-drained
- Light requirement: Full sun or partial shade
- Natural habitat: Grassland, meadows, roadsides
What’s better than the Anise Hyssop’s clumps-forming, soft spikes of mauve flowers? Perhaps only its aromatic leaves! A nectar-rich scented sensation of a herb best placed at the back of a border, where it brings in bees and butterflies.
- Type: Perennial
- Height: 60-100cm.
- Flowers: June-September
- Soil Requirement: Well-drained
- Light Requirement: Full sun or partial shade
- Natural Habitat: Dry forests, praries
- Also known as: Fragrant Giant Hyssop, Lavender Giant Hyssop
Choosing different wildflower plants by species gives you complete control over when you plant them, where you plant them and what the end result will be. And buying wildflower plug plants instead of seeds, means that you don't have to wait for them to germinate - perfect if speed is of the essence!
The full range of over 100 British wildflower plants species from Boston Seeds is available to buy online in trays of 25, 150 and 500 plug plants and all are available with nationwide delivery.
Want to learn more about the likes and dislikes of your favourite wildflower plants? Our handy wildflower species quide will tell you all you need to know - yours to download and keep for FREE.
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