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As we get towards spring we'll all be thinking about what to do with our gardens for the year. This week, Susan has shared her thoughts on her Pollinator Paradise with us.

Last week I seem to have spent quite a lot of time looking out over my front garden through rain-streaked windows and imagining what I would like my Pollinator Paradise to look like in a few months. Making a decision about what to plant and where, when there are so many plants to choose from, is not easy.

My problem is that I just love them all and want them all in my garden.

I love colour, big bright bold colours, and more often than not I will put clashing colours next to each other rather than complimentary colours. I do so admire people who can plant their gardens with a sophisticated restraint of limited plant species and colour.

As space is limited in my front garden I realise I really do need to limit my palate of plants – but on what criteria?

My fixed parameters for any plants are that my front garden has a heavy clay soil and faces due east. I can improve the soil (which in fact I have just done by adding some Lakeland Gold clay soil improver from Dalefoot Composts). There is nothing I can do about the orientation, but facing east means it gets the morning sun and in the height of summer the sunshine doesn’t leave the front garden until about 2pm. So sun-wise it's not bad.

Variable parameters to consider or not are colour, height, flowering season, pollinator potential and native or non-native species.

I definitely want my plants to attract pollinators and provide abundant nectar and pollen, so that’s my top filter. Colour, height, flowering season – well yes, but aghh how do I limit my choice from so many wonderful, joyous plants?! Maybe native and non-native species will help. Should I choose only native species? I look though my seed catalogues and yes, there are some great native pollinator plants: foxgloves (digitalis purpurea), bluebell (hyacinthoides non-scripta), comfrey (Symphytum officinale), clovers (trifolium species), greater knapweed (Centaurea scabiosa), hellebore, stinking (Helleborus foetidus) to name a few.

But my desire for big bright colours draws me to plants like Tithonia (Mexican sunflower), Verbena bonariensis, Echinacea purpurea, dahlia, Californian poppies (Eshscholzia californica).

So I wonder, are non-native species as beneficial to pollinators as native species?

I turn to my good friend Mark Patterson, @apiculturalLdn, www.apicultural.co.uk, beekeeper and wild pollinator consultant in London, for his opinion.

“Most adult pollinators do not discriminate between native and non-native flowers as long as the pollen and nectar supply is good. Approximately 82% of the nectar supply in towns and cities comes from non-native plant species, proof that non-natives can benefit pollinators,” he informs me. Adding “domestic gardens have such an important part to play, they cover about 28% of the land area in the UK providing a whopping 85% of the food resources for pollinating insects.”

"Fantastic", I say to myself, that’s good to know. I turn to my seed catalogues... decisions, decisions...