With the days getting longer and warming up (we hope!), we can now spend more time in our gardens and green spaces enjoying the plants that are flowering, while spotting the pollinators who rely on this source of food. Here are a few examples of those you could look out for this month.

We’re also giving you some suggestions for how to take part in 30 Days Wild, an initiative that encourages everyone to do something wild and mindful each day in June. We’d love you to join in! Find out more information, and get your free pack in the post here.

If you let your grass grow long as part of Plantlife’s No Mow May, there’s a good chance that you’ll get some Dandelions popping up in your lawn. Unfairly labelled as a ‘weed’, this plant is in fact a wonderful early source of nectar for our precious pollinators, flowering earlier in the year than many other plants. Brimstone butterflies are fans, as are Commas and Red Admirals. Young, tender dandelion leaves (providing they have not been treated with pesticides) can be added to salads and, in the past, the plant’s roots were used to make an ersatz coffee. Dandelions have also been known as 'Wet-the-bed' and 'Tiddle-beds', due to the myth that picking or touching them will result in an embarrassing night-time accident!

Garlic Mustard can often be found growing along woodland edges, hedgerows and garden borders, reaching up to 1 metre in height! Also known as Jack-by-the-hedge, its smooth, hairless, wavy-edged leaves can be used – alongside wild garlic and nettles – to make a delicious pesto. Garlic mustard is a biennial plant, taking two years to complete its lifecycle: it grows young leaves in its first season, which it holds onto over winter, before flowering in the spring of its second year; look out for its clusters of dainty, four-petalled flowers.

Garlic Mustard is one of the preferred plants of the Orange-tip butterfly, which flies between April and July. The males are easy to spot, with the bright orange tips (the clue is in the name!) on their upper forewings. The female’s tips are grey-black instead. Both have a green-grey pattern on the underside of their hindwings, which provides good camouflage when they are resting on plants. The female lays her eggs on plants that the hatching caterpillars like to eat. Garlic Mustard is one of them, as is Cuckooflower and Hedge Mustard. Interestingly, Orange-tip caterpillars can be cannibalistic, eating the remains of their own eggshells after hatching, before moving onto neighbouring Orange-tip eggs!

When we think of pollinators, most of us think of bees. One bee you’re likely to encounter this month is the White-tailed Bumblebee. As the name implies, this bee has a fluffy, bright white bum! In spring, the queen emerges from hibernation and starts a new colony by laying eggs that will hatch as workers bees. These worker bees look after the young and the nest. Later on, males emerge to mate with new females, who become the next generation’s queens. The White-tailed Bumblebee is about 2cm in length and very common, regularly visiting the flowers in our gardens, woodlands, parks and other environments. It favours short, open flowers, such as White Clover and Comfrey.

Use the ID sheet you can find here to help you identify the bees you see this spring. You could do this as part of 30 Days Wild’s theme for Week 1, ‘Discover Nature’!

For more on how to rewild your garden for pollinators, check out our blogs, ‘Create a Wilder Garden’ and ‘The best plants for bees and pollinators’ for further guidance. You could plant pollinator-friendly plants and set up a nectar café as part of 30 Days Wild’s theme for Week 3, ‘Help Nature’.

Many communities are also working together with their local councils to provide more habitats for wildflowers and pollinators, by letting the grass on roadside verges and in sections of parks grow long. Why not get involved/speak to your council to rewild a space near you?