Richard Collins: Vital Bud-dy to our bees and butterflies 

Buddleia plants are ideal refuelling-stops for our bees and butterflies. Pic: Marc O’SUllivan

Planting native plant species, rather than exotic aliens from garden centres, helps promote biodiversity. As pollinators, our bees and butterflies are ‘hand in glove’ with the local ‘weeds’. There are, however, some exceptions to the botanical anti-foreigner rule.

A bush in my small garden, for example, resembled pre-lockdown Dublin Airport this summer, so many insects visited it. Yet, Buddleja davidii, ‘the butterfly bush’, hails from the far side of the world.