Small spaces, big returns

You do not need a meadow to feed pollinators. A handful of pots by a sunny kitchen door will do more good than you might expect, and herbs are the ideal crop for the job. They earn their keep twice over: leaves for cooking, flowers for bees, hoverflies, butterflies and the occasional day-flying moth.

Most culinary herbs come from Mediterranean hillsides, where summers are hot, rain is scarce and the soil is thin and stony. That suits container growing perfectly. A terracotta pot against a warm wall can replicate those conditions far more reliably than a heavy clay border that sits wet all winter. Put your pots somewhere you walk past every day — a doorstep, a balcony rail, a paved corner beside the back door — and you will notice problems early and remember to water.

Aim for a cluster rather than a single lonely pot. Bees navigate by sight, and a group of flowering herbs in one place reads as a proper patch of forage rather than a pit stop.

Lavender: the pollinator magnet

If you plant only one herb for wildlife, make it lavender. Its dense spikes of purple flowers open from early summer into August and are irresistible to bumblebees, honeybees and butterflies, which land on the small florets along the spike rather than crawling inside.

For pots, choose a compact English lavender rather than the big, floppy French types. Varieties such as 'Hidcote' or 'Munstead' stay neat and flower generously. Use a pot at least 30cm across, fill it with a gritty, free-draining mix — a loam-based compost with a couple of generous handfuls of horticultural grit stirred through — and top-dress the surface with more grit to keep the collar of the plant dry.

Lavender hates winter wet far more than winter cold. Raise pots onto feet so water drains freely, and move them against a wall or into an unheated porch for the worst of the weather. Deadhead spent flower spikes to encourage a second flush, but leave a few seed heads standing into autumn for goldfinches.

Rosemary: evergreen structure and early nectar

Rosemary is the herb that keeps giving when everything else is bare. An evergreen shrub with needle-like leaves, it will often produce its pale blue flowers in late winter and early spring, exactly when queen bumblebees are emerging from hibernation and there is precious little else about.

It grows into a substantial shrub, so give it a pot of at least 35cm and be prepared to repot every couple of years. Upright forms suit containers better than sprawling prostrate ones, which want to trail over a wall. Rosemary is happiest in full sun and sharply drained compost; it will sulk and turn yellow in a soggy pot.

Harvest sprigs regularly through the year. Light, frequent picking keeps the plant bushy and stops it going woody and bare at the base. In a mild UK winter it will stay green outdoors, though a spell of hard frost can scorch the tips — a fleece jacket on the coldest nights is usually enough.

Thyme: a carpet of tiny flowers

Thyme is the quiet hero of a small pollinator garden. Its flowers are minute but produced in such profusion that a single pot can be humming with small bees and hoverflies for weeks in midsummer. Common thyme, lemon thyme and the variegated forms are all worth growing, and you can squeeze several varieties into one wide, shallow bowl.

Because thyme is low-growing, it works beautifully along the front edge of a doorstep collection, where it will spill over the rim and soften hard paving. Plant it in a compost and grit mix, water sparingly, and give it the sunniest spot you have. Thyme is more tolerant of drought than most herbs, but it resents being crowded — leave a few centimetres between plants so air moves around the foliage.

Let it flower rather than stripping every stem for the kitchen. You can still take cuttings for soup and stuffing; just leave a good third of the plant to bloom.

Chives, mint and a few easy extras

Chives are the simplest herb of all, and their round pink-purple pom-pom flowers are adored by bees. They grow happily in a 20cm pot, die back in winter and reappear reliably each spring. Snip the leaves, not the flowers, and you will get both a crop and a display.

Other herbs worth adding to the cluster:

• Mint — keep it in its own pot, or it will colonise everything within reach. The flowers are a late-summer favourite of hoverflies and small bees.
• Oregano and marjoram — sprawling, generous flowerers that extend the season well into September.
• Sage — handsome grey foliage and nectar-rich blue flowers in early summer.
• Borage — an annual that self-seeds freely; its starry blue flowers refill with nectar constantly, making it one of the best plants you can offer a bee.

Keeping pots productive

Container herbs need a little routine to thrive. Water in the morning rather than the evening, aiming at the compost rather than the leaves, and check pots daily in hot spells — small pots dry out fast. Feed sparingly: a weak liquid feed every fortnight from spring to midsummer is plenty. Rich feeding encourages leafy growth at the expense of flowers, and flowers are the whole point.

Watch for vine weevil grubs in pots, which hollow out roots and cause plants to collapse, and for aphids on soft new tips. A gentle blast from the hose usually deals with the latter, and leaving a few aphids gives ladybirds and hoverfly larvae something to eat.

Refresh the compost each spring, top up with grit mulch, and resist the urge to tidy away every dead stem. A slightly scruffy pot, left to seed and shelter, is exactly what a small wildlife-friendly garden should look like.