July in pictures

 Echium "Blue Bedder" - one of the bee's favourites.

Summer stunner: Helenium "Sahin's Early Flowerer"

 Scabious "Cambridge Blue"

 Hoverflies out in good numbers this month...

...as well as ladybirds.

Hoverfly and thunderflies on Dahlia "Redskin".

 Hoverfly on Shirley poppy.

 White-tailed bumblebee on field scabious.

 Buff-tailed on opium poppy.

 Tree bumblebee on scabious.

 Another lovely hoverfly...

...and another.

 Agastache foenicolium and Rudbeckia "Marmalade" making a nice combination.

Small tortoiseshell caterpillars on all-important nettles.

 Large skipper on one of the best plants for butterflies - perennial wallflower "Bowle's Mauve"...

  

...and small tortoiseshell on the same.

Flowers in the orchard

The most success I've had with planting plug plants in the meadow area of the orchard - and the one most popular with the bees - has been with tufted vetch. Also flowering this month is the much-maligned ragwort, clover, buttercups, rosebay willowherb and self-heal. The long grass also gives shelter to numerous other invertebrates, frogs and hedgehogs.

Nectar plants in July

What's been flowering for the bees and butterflies this month:

Agastache foenicolium 
Agastache foenicolium "Golden Jubilee"
Alfalfa (Medicago sativa) 
Asparagus 
Aster frikartii "Monch"
Astrantia major 
Bishop's Flower (Ammi majus)
Blood Pink (Dianthus cruentus)
Borage 
Buddleia
Bramble 
Candytuft
Catmint (Nepeta mussini)
Cirsium rivulare "Atropurpureum" 
Clover - wild, white
Coreopseris vertverticillata
Cornflower
Cosmos "Sensation Mixed"
Cupid's Dart (Catananche)
Dahlia "Redskin" 
Echinacea purpurea
Echium "Blue Bedder"
Felicia "The Blues"
Field scabious (Knautia arvensis)
Foxgloves
Geranium "Johnsons Blue"
Geranium pratense "Mrs Kendall Clark"
Giant Scabious (Cephalaria gigantia)
Golden Marguerite (Anthemis tinctoria "Sauce Hollandaise") 
Helenium "Sahin's Early Flowerer"
Hyssop
Lavender
Love-in-a-mist 
Mallow - wild
Marjoram (Origanum marjorana)
Nicotiana "Lime Green"
Night-scented stock
Peas
Phacelia tanacetifolia
Poppies - cornfield, opium and Shirley 
Potentilla atrosanguinea 
Ragwort
Raspberry
Rose Campion 
Rosebay willowherb
Rudbeckia "Marmalade"
Runner beans 
Salvia x superba "Rose Queen"
Scabiosa atropurpurea "Oxford Blue" 
Scabiosa caucasia "Perfect Blue" 
Self-heal (Prunella vulgaris)
Snapdragon 
Tufted vetch
Verbena bonariensis
Veronica spicata
Wallflower "Bowles Mauve" 
Wild basil (Clinopodium vulgare)