Pick up any book about gardening for wildlife and you will find Asters mentioned in them. But as well as providing nectar for butterflies (and enlivening autumn borders), Asters are also rather prone to getting mildew, which in my often-baked garden is something of a problem.
So for the second year year I've been trying an Aster that is readily available in garden centres, is said to be more mildew-resistant, and it flowers a good month or more earlier than most of the 'Michaelmas Daisy' asters. It is this one (right) - Aster x frikartii 'Monch'.
As the name reveals, it is a hybrid - a cross of the European Michaelmas Daisy Aster amellus from the Alps and Pyrenees and Aster thompsonii.
Sure enough, it has been in flower for a couple of weeks now, with lovely mauve ray petals around a small disc of yellow florets on each of the flowering stems, and growing to about 2 foot high. And considering we've hardly had a drop of rain here since May, it hasn't got a trace of mildew.
But is it attracting anything? Well, so far I've seen no butterflies, no bees, and none of the thousands of hoverflies currently on the wing have bothered to drop in.
And you know the question I'm going to ask! Has anyone any evidence to the contrary, or is this one we should write off as not especially good 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
Have you looked at night to see what they attract? I grow Cosmos in my garden because I like them (not everything in my garden is for the wildlife), the day time insects prefer other flowers but last night I took some friends out to show them a huge Long horned beetle (Cerambyx cerdo). During the day it sat still on a leaf and didn’t move even when the camera was thrust in its face. As dusk fell it came alive and was half flying half scrambling to every cosmos flower greedily eating the pollen.
I’ve also found that the more insect attracting flowers I grow the fussier my wildlife is becoming. The flowers which were on the top of the hit list last year are now being ignored in preference to a new flower I’ve introduced.
Build it and they will come.