One of the staple ways of giving nature a home in small gardens is to grow climbers. Given the lack of space, it is a brilliant way of using vertical bare surfaces and filling them with foliage and flowers, with all the benefits that that brings.
But one question I'm often asked is what alternatives are there to Ivy - it might be a brilliant plant for wildlife but those aerial roots can be a right menace to your brickwork and mortar.
One plant family that is well worth considering is Clematis, but while so many of them may have saucer-sized flowers, they never seem to attract a single pollinator.
Here, then, are two that you might like to consider that are proven attractors of wildlife.
The first is the 'orange-peel' clematis, Clematis tangutica, from eastern Asia, that has these really attractive waxy flowers, which are followed by gloriously tufty seed heads. This one I photographed in late September still pulling in the Honeybees.
The other is Clematis rehderiana, again from China. This one is in my garden, and in early autumn it is harder to find a plant with more pull for bumblebees and Honeybees. The flowers may bee subtle in tone and form but, en masse, I think this is a real winner.
Do you have any climbers which you recommend for wildlife?
If you want to drop by my RSPB wildlife gardening blog, it is updated every Friday, and I'd love to see you there - www.rspb.org.uk/community/blogs/hfw
There are many native plants that can be used alternative to Ivy with drought tolerant and do not even require irrigation once established. Some of them are Pacific blackberry, sword fern, California honeysuckle, beach strawberry and can be many more. These plants can be the elements of a diverse ground cover planting that can be an ivy substitute.