Here in Australia I only have two native butterflies in my garden. One is the Yellow Admiral, a relative of your red admiral! My admiral feeds on my weedy nettles of Europe too! I will certainly be keeping around these non-native nettles for my butterflies! Excellent video!!

Simple recipe for butterflies. It’ s the four S’s. Sunshine- locate the plants for butterflies in the sunniest places in the garden. Shelter - usually there are fewer butterflies in windswept gardens. Create shelter with beneficial shrubs for butterflies, like Buckthorn ( Rhamnus) for Brimstones to breed on or buddleias or Hebe for nectar. Let ivy grow up fences and walls to create flowering growth at the top for autumn nectar. Sustenance - butterflies need nectar as adults and their special plants to lay eggs on - larval food plants. Nettles, Birdsfoot trefoil and Ladies Smock are all good. And finally Sympathy - caring enough about butterflies to do the maximum for them in your garden.

A video to lift the spirits of us all! Very many thanks Dave.

Brilliant this dave thanks for the great advice

Love this video! Thanks

had nettles for years now, no butterflies on them, sadly, probably lack of enough sunshine, everyone with sunshine round here has shorn lawns.

Thankyou for sharing these amazing videos Dave ! Very informative and relaxing , greetings from the Netherlands 🌼🌻🦋🌺👋🏻

Love it cheers from Denmark 🦋

So beautiful 🦋🦋🙂

Great video Dave you're so lucky with such a variety in your garden. Last year was a bumper year here on the Wirral in my garden, orange tips earlier on, red admirals, peacocks, painted ladies, whites...then this year all I've seen is one red admiral & lots of whites which had caterpillars on my sweet rocket. Don't know why but a bit worrying, glad to see they're all thriving in your neck of the woods though.

Do you think providing shelter from the wind might also encourage them to stay in your garden? Perhaps mimicking the shelter found in woodland rides.

What lovely creatures! And amazing variety in yf garden. Especially the orange one. It's a mystery how 1. You can make them sit still to be filmed mostly 2. How you know all those names. Not only the butterflies, but also all the plants, weeds, grasses, insects, eveything. Your videos are getting better, quality wise that is. Keep them coming! 🤗 Ps how can you get that marjoram so tall and strong.?

Like 16 👍🤝🙋‍♂️🤗

are the holly blues happy on varigated ivy then? what about the canary island ivy? or does it have to be native ivy

Grow cabbages !

As quiet a few of the butterflies in your video use grasses as a food source, when do you cut long grass? I watched Speckled wood laying on grasses in my garden this year, end of July. I was planning to cut my long grass this weekend. Is that too early?

Please do add latin names of the plants mentioned.

Hi Dave, It's been a brilliant year for Buddleia here in the Cotswolds, but they haven't exactly been brimming with butterflies. Any ideas as to why? Cheers.

Superb video Dave !! Thumbs up. But the strange thing happened while we where watching your video. We got an commercial of Pokon Insect killing poison from Evergreen garden UK (monsanto, bayer) on your channel. If I was you I would report this to youtube. Please give a comment on this. Greetings Joke en Robert Remijnse from the Netherlands (big fans of your books)

Hi. I had the weird fortune of seeing a wasp eating a clutch of spider eggs today. As you are a dedicated and educated nature lover you might be able to tell me: is there any point in interfering here and whose side should one take?