Pots and Planters
What?
Even the smallest spaces host nature. Pots, planters and troughs can turn doorways, shopfronts and courtyards into thriving micro-habitats. With the right mix of plants and a bit of imagination, these container gardens can provide food, shelter and water for a surprising range of wildlife.
Where?
Everywhere — from high-street doorways and balconies to hardstanding yards and forecourts. Pots brighten urban and industrial spaces, adding visual interest to business parks, school entrances and town centres. Containers are of course especially useful when there is just nowhere else to plant, but you can use them too to add variety, texture, height and pattern to any landscape setting. For site-specific actions, check out the Isle of Wight Habitat Map, and find out what is particularly special near you.
How?
Vary shape, size and height. Group pots of different dimensions and place them at multiple levels to create shelter and structure; the spaces between, behind and even beneath all have a part to play in building a pot ecosystem.
Choose plants that feed and host wildlife through their life cycles. Combine flowers for nectar and pollen, fruiting plants for birds, and the right leafy species for butterfly, moth and sawfly caterpillars.
Good examples: Lady’s Bedstraw, Strawberries, Mints, Bramble, Dandelions (and related Cat’s-ear species), and traditional salad or vegetable crops.
Avoid using only annuals. Bedding plants add quick colour but provide nectar for just a short time and often leave pots bare in winter. Mix them with longer-lived species — perennials, herbs, small shrubs, or self-seeding wildflowers — to keep planters valuable year-round. This mix offers structure, shelter and a steady food supply through the year.
Add habitat materials. Fill some pots with woodchip, bundles of sticks or pieces of bark to support deadwood-feeding species.
Create micro-wetlands. Seal a few pots to hold rainwater or add damp compost and bog plants — hoverflies, and perhaps amphibians, will use them for laying eggs.
Use recycled or locally made containers such as reclaimed tubs, barrels or ceramic planters from local potteries — keeping your project circular and Island-based.
Group pots together so they form connected habitat clusters rather than isolated features.
When?
You can add or refresh pots at any time throughout the year, and of course the great thing is, they are portable! So you can reposition, rearrange, add, subtract and alter your pot ecosystem as you go, responding to what seems to work best for wildlife.
Why?
Container habitats support biodiversity even in the most built-up environments. They cool paved areas, absorb rainwater, and create attractive, restorative spaces for people. Many workplaces, shops and schools have limited outdoor ground, planters can connect isolated green spaces into a wider local network of “stepping-stone” habitats.
Actions for Isle of Wight Species
A huge variety of invertebrates will use pot gardens. From flying species that visit the flowers you have chosen, to the earthworms, woodlice and centipedes that find shelter underneath and in-between.
Butterflies will use both the flowers and the foliage in your pots if you choose the right species for adults and caterpillars.
House sparrows pick seeds from pots left to go to seed.
Bats benefit indirectly from increased insect activity around flowering planters.
Frogs and toads can shelter in the shade and cover of collections of damp pots and micro-ponds.
Resources
RHS – Gardening in Pots for Pollinators
Garden Organic – Container Gardening for Wildlife
Buglife – Pollinator-Friendly Plant List
Grow Wild – Small Space Gardening
“Delivers LNRS Urban Habitat Enhancement through small-scale container habitats: UGG1.1 Urban Habitat Enhancement | UGG1.2 Priority Verge Management.”