10 top wildlife plants at RHS Chelsea 2026

Biodiversity is in crisis, but gardeners have huge power to help – even just by growing a few choice plants. Engaging with the wonderful wildlife on our doorstep often benefits our own wellbeing, too.

Look out for these 10 top wildlife plants at RHS Chelsea Flower Show, each benefitting a different group of animals to help make your outdoor space a haven for biodiversity.

1. Bumblebees – Echium vulgare

You’ll find this wildflower on Salisbury Plain and the shingle at Dungeness, Kent, making these two of the UK’s best sites for bumblebees. Try it in dry borders, long grass areas or gravel gardens. Stunning spires of bright blue, nectar-rich flowers are a magnet for a wide range of bees in summer. Thriving in sun, poor soils and good drainage, this biennial is easy to grow from seed and will often self-seed.

Find it: The Eden Project: Bring Me Sunshine Garden

2. Butterflies – Verbena bonariensis

Loved for its long flowering season and tall, airy stems lifting dainty purple flowerheads high above the rest of the planting, this robust and rewarding perennial provides a butterfly buffet from June to October. The clusters of nectar-rich tubular flowers are perfect for helping these long-tongued pollinators to forage, and are particularly valuable late in the season when less food is available.

Find it: The Transient Garden

3. Moths – Digitalis purpurea

They’re the pollinators that take the night shift – and we have 2500 UK species of moth, compared to only 59 butterflies. While adult moths feed on nectar, the caterpillars eat leaves and need different plants. So to help moths, it’s important to include these caterpillar food plants. An ideal biennial for shade, foxgloves fill this role for several species, including the lesser yellow underwing and angle shades moth.

Find it: Parkinson’s UK – A Garden for Every Parkinson's Journey

4. Hoverflies – Anthriscus sylvestris ‘Ravenswing’

Providing pollination, recycling services and aphid predation, hoverflies are a true gardener’s friend. These often-overlooked pollinators mostly have short tongues, so need open, flat-topped flowerheads that they can easily access for pollen and nectar, such as fennel, achillea and cow parsley. ‘Ravenswing’ is a dramatic take on wild cow parsley, with deep purple foliage offsetting pale, lacy blooms.

Find it: The Boodles Garden

5. Ladybirds – nasturtiums

Eating aphids, scale insects and mildews, native ladybirds are another key garden helper. Often grown near veg but great for pots too, nasturtiums are easy annuals that draw aphids away from other plants to be hoovered up by ladybirds, which also feed on the pollen and nectar and lay their eggs among the leaves. Ensure ladybirds have somewhere to overwinter by delaying cutting back perennials until March.

Find it: A Little Garden of Shared Knowledge

6. Bats – Lonicera periclymenum

Bats are vital to UK ecosystems and help keep midges in check in your garden. They feast on insects at night, so whip up a bat banquet with plants that attract nocturnal insects such as moths. Moths are drawn to pale, night-scented flowers such as our native honeysuckle and its cultivars, which make wonderfully fragrant climbers for a large wall, pergola or trellis and thrive in shade. Birds love the berries too.

Find it: The Bat Conservation Trust’s Nocturnal Garden

7. Hedgehogs – mixed native hedge

The clue’s in the name! Dense hedges with cover at the base provide ideal habitat for hedgehogs, connecting gardens and garden areas with safe routes. Many native hedge species, such as hawthorn, hazel, privet, elder and alder buckthorn, are caterpillar food plants, so help to lay on a hedgehog larder too. Leave leaf litter under the hedge, or even sweep leaves underneath, to provide a winter duvet.

Find it: Trussels Together Garden

8. Amphibians – Caltha palustris

A pond is perhaps the best wildlife feature you can add to your garden. Native pond and wetland plants provide shelter, invertebrate prey and egg-laying sites for frogs, toads and newts, especially marginal plants that create underwater architecture in the shallows. Kingcups provide cover for frogs, toads, newts and their tadpoles, and sheltered sites for egg-laying and spawning. Ensure there’s also damp cover around the pond, such as long grass.

Find it: ‘Tales from the Riverbank’ Garden sponsored by Kennedys’ IPA

9. Berry-eating birds – Viburnum opulus

The bright red autumn berries of this easy and reliable UK native shrub provide the perfect winter larder for a wide range of birds, including blackbirds, fieldfares, redwings, mistle thrushes, jays, bramblings, blackcaps, waxwings and more. The flat heads of creamy flowers in late spring/early summer are perfect for hoverflies. Guelder rose thrives in a damp spot in a woodland area, shrubbery or mixed hedge.

Find it: Woodland Trust: Forgotten Forests Garden

10. Seed-eating birds – Cynara cardunculus

A resilient perennial with jagged silver-green leaves and flower stems 2m tall, cardoon is a truly architectural plant. The giant thistle-like blooms are a magnet for pollinators, while later in the year, seedheads provide a feast for birds such as finches. Leave the stems standing for winter structure and habitat, and birds may even use the thistle down to line their nests in spring.

Find it: The Sightsavers Garden: We Start With Sight But We Don’t Stop There

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