In my most recent article on the gardens of Grenada, I was somewhat critical of the number of exotic species they contain and that many aren’t of much benefit to wildlife. As an English gardener, I knew that I was undoubtedly a pot calling a kettle black, but I thought I would just see what my iPhone app had to say about our own garden, particularly plants flowering at this time of the year.

As is often well advised, I will get my excuses in first. The back hedge to our garden is well established blackthorn, which I have supplemented with both red and green leaved hazel, a hawthorn, and an oak tree in the corner. I won’t mention the fuchsia magellanica from South America, but the bees do love it. Down one side of the garden we planted the top of the Devon bank with hawthorn and holly, adding a damson sapling. Down the other side of the garden is a very high stone wall, the remnant of an ancient barn, and it is often adorned with masses of ivy, either in flower or in fruit. Our front hedge, however, is much less native. It is made up of a variety of quite closely planted camellias from China and Japan. What is interesting is that some of the camellias are very attractive to our native insects and, as a result, they attract the almost constant attention of blue tits and chiffchaffs. Others attract much less. As seems to be a general rule, the more exotic the blooms, the fewer the insects. In addition, over the past few years, I have tried to change our small rear lawn into a miniature wild-flower meadow, sadly with very limited success.

During winter, the garden feature that attracts the most passing attention is our mimosa tree, acacia dealbata, silver wattle. It is a native of Tasmania, where its yellow flowers cloak the mountain sides in winter and early spring. Its flowers are famous for their overpoweringly sweet scent and for being covered in hundreds of bees. When we first moved to Slapton 23 years ago, the flowers just about reached their peak at February half term. The lane luxuriated in their perfume and there were honey bees everywhere. Since then, the tree has flowered a bit earlier every year, until now it is in full flower at Christmas, so there are no bees to take advantage of its nectar, the perfume only occasionally develops and wildlife has lost its benefits.

As I wander around asking my app what its view is about our various plants, I soon begin to realise how we have all filled our gardens with plants from across the Globe and just what effort it must have taken originally to bring them back here from the wild. For example, I knew that the Chusan Palm, the Pieris Forest Flame and the Black Bamboo were all from China, but not that the Black Bamboo comes from only one specific island, Hainan.

When it comes to just those currently in flower in our garden, the Iris, that I thought was native, is from Algeria; the crocus is, of course, from Turkey; the pink Bergenia is from Siberia; the purple cyclamen is from the Caucasus, and the yellow flowering Euryops from South Africa. The heather, a number of which flower beside our drive, is actually a tree heath from southern Europe. Not surprisingly, various other plants are also from there, including our flowering Viburnum and as is our Vinca Major, in full flower and trying to take over the whole garden. I had anticipated that some of our “wild” geranium would also be from the Mediterranean, but no, it’s from North America. I also hadn’t anticipated that the hellebores come from almost anywhere; no wonder that some thrive and some struggle. It is clear that under garden conditions many plants from far flung countries thrive and some natives struggle.

If you provide good plant cover, especially flowering plants, provide water when necessary, don’t use insecticides and provide a plentiful range of bird food, it easy to draw in a wide range of insect and birdlife. This is particularly true in Slapton with our exceptionally mild climate and a National Nature Reserve next door. We can even have quite rare birds either passing through or even lingering in our gardens. For example, people have often said to me, “I hear that in Slapton you can see firecrests. Where is good place?” to which I joke, “Our garden,” and we are not alone. Not far from us, across the village, Peter successfully rescued a firecrest that had flown into one of his windows.

Attracting butterflies is the big issue, and increasingly so. I therefore set off to attract more butterflies by attempting to get more native wildflowers to grow. I am now realising, however, that this is much easier said than done. Our next-door neighbour is currently struggling to rewild successfully her acre of paddock. Even at the DWT reserve at Andrew’s Wood we seem to be going backwards; all the rain last year made the grasses grow so vigorously that they are in danger of swamping everything else.

We recently watched, on television, Monty Don’s tour of gardens in the UK, which included a visit to Isabella Tree’s Knepp Estate in Sussex, so famous for its “wilding’. It made us realise that, actually, the best contribution we can probably make is just to grow as many nectar-producing flowers as we can, to continue to respond to appeals by DWT to support their wild flower project in the Avon valley, and to hope that the Government programme to persuade farmers to leave field edges uncultivated is successful in promoting the growth of those special plants that the caterpillars demand.