...using the logic of ecology

insect life on lavender plants

Lavender is clearly a well established plant in Italian gardens but few people consider the environmental benefits of a lavender shrub amasse with beautiful, perfumed flower spikes. As a garden designer, based here in Italy for the past 16 years, I am sadly often asked that fateful question:

“Do lavenders attract a lot of insects?”

My answer to this question is always the same;

“Yes, thankfully lavender plants do attract a whole host of wonderful insects”

To my eternal dismay some clients are still shocked at the thought of a plant that hosts a myriad of colourful, buzzing pollinating insects, as if these fantastically essential creatures should somehow be excluded from the dream of making a natural garden in Italy. Well, for me personally the notion of having colourful, happy and important creatures hovering over a lavender plant is quite superb, given the spectacle that it provides a garden with, not to mention the reward of assisting them with their survival.

Lavender is adored by flying insects but their sole aim is to feed on the nectar locked within the tens of miniature violet flowers on each flower spike and they certainly don’t have the desire, and certainly not the time to bother the owner of the garden, as they go about their business. Therefore, we can consider the lavender plant to be an essential part of the fabric of a natural or ecological Italian garden with its beautiful swallowtail butterflies, hummingbird moths and a whole host of different bee species that buzz around it from dawn until dusk during the summer months in Italian gardens.

In this set of photographs you can see the spectacle of colourful insects on my lavender in my back garden and not once did they show any interest in me during the 20 mins that I was sat right next to the plant- taking these pictures.