Butterflies bring huge joy to gardens with their bright colours and eye-catching patterns, but sadly, they’re in steep decline across the country and really need our help. The story is much the same for moths. Often overlooked in favour of their day-flying cousins, moths can actually be just as bright, beautiful and important and are relying on us to help their numbers recover.

With 75 per cent of British butterflies now in decline, some moths falling by up to 99 per cent and the ability of these incredible insects to bring us immense joy, let’s take a look at how you can give them a helping hand, starting in your garden.

Think seasonally

By including a range of plants that bloom alternately through spring, summer and autumn, butterflies that emerge at different times of the year will always have something to eat.

Feed the night-fliers

Though some moths (like burnet moths and silver Y moths) fly and feed during the day, most do so at night, while some moths don’t feed at all, emerging only to reproduce. The best way to feed night-flying moths like elephant hawkmoths and angle shades moths is with plants that release their scent at night. This attracts the night-fliers, and it’s thought that night-scented plants actually evolved alongside moths so they could increase their chances of being pollinated.

Some of the best night-scented plants for moths include:

• Honeysuckle
• Jasmine
• Evening primrose
• Sweet rocket

Where to plant

Butterflies love feeding in warm, sheltered locations in full sunshine, so reserve a spot like this for your butterfly-friendly plants.

Leave untidy areas

Luckily, gardening for butterflies and moths doesn’t always involve that much work – feel free to take a back seat and let some areas of your outdoor space grow wild.

Plants you might see as weeds (like dandelions and brambles), long grass and leaf litter are crucial to many types of butterfly and moth. Some butterflies spend winter in a kind of hibernation amongst the leaf litter, while lots of moths spend the winter as pupae, all tucked up in their cocoons. They do this in the top layer of garden soil or in piles of leaves and plant debris on the ground – what better excuse to save your back and do a little less gardening? The caterpillars generally hatch after around two weeks and then eat almost constantly until they’re ready to pupate, shedding their skin a few times along the way to accommodate their extra bulk.

Cultivate a chemical and peat-free garden

Pesticides and herbicides can kill moths, butterflies and their caterpillars when they feed on your plants. Organic gardening free from chemicals is one of the best ways to help all kinds of insects thrive in your garden. By cutting out, or at least cutting down on chemicals you’ll also see an increase in insects that help to naturally control garden ‘pests’.

Peat compost is also bad news for the environment. In fact, the effects of peat extraction are devastating.

The peat in horticultural compost is ripped out of peat bogs. These incredible wild places formed many thousands of years ago as the waterlogged plants began decomposing very slowly; never completely breaking down and instead forming peat. As a result, peat is an incredible carbon store, and the world’s peatlands hold more than twice the carbon stored in all the world’s forests. Not only that, but they are invaluable habitats in their own right, home to rare carnivorous plants and some of the UK’s rarest butterflies and moths, like the large heath butterfly and argent and sable moth. Birds like snipe and dunlin breed on peatlands, and healthy peatland vegetation can even slow the flow of rainfall, helping to prevent flooding in local towns and villages.

Good peat compost is better than bad compost made with peat – all it takes is a little research. Peat-free compost is now available at places like B&Q, Waitrose and Wickes, though you might want to research further to find out how sustainable, ethical or effective some of the alternatives are. Some of the best peat-free composts include Dalefoot Composts, Carbon Gold and Sylva Grow.