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Here are just a few of the watering products you will find at Ashtead Park Garden Centre depending on the season and availability:

A garden humming with bees and shimmering with brilliantly-coloured butterflies is full of life and beauty, the insects adding another dimension to your planting and giving you yet another reason to enjoy your garden.

By encouraging bees and butterflies into your garden you&#39;re doing the planet a favour as well as your plants. Populations of both insects have been plummeting, a combination of disease, climate change and the lack of suitable pollen-rich flowers. It&#39;s important because their activities are responsible for around a third of the food we eat &ndash; so helping them out makes good sense all round.

You&#39;ll find all you need in our garden centre to make your plot a haven for bees and butterflies: here are some of the features you can include for them when you&#39;re planning your garden in Surrey.

Attracting bees:

<ul>
	<li>Include water:&nbsp;Like all creatures, bees need to drink. In our garden centre you&#39;ll find all sorts of water features, from bird baths to bubble fountains and ponds.</li>
	<li>Hang up a bee hotel:&nbsp;We stock a range of housing designed with bees in mind. Solitary bees lay eggs in cavities in trees or wood; recreate the same habitat with a bee hotel hung on a sunny wall.</li>
	<li>Plant bee-friendly plants:&nbsp;Bees love plants with simple, open flowers so they can get at the nectar easily. Good choices include clematis, hollyhocks, geraniums, lavender and flowering herbs.</li>
</ul>

Attracting butterflies:

<ul>
	<li>Make a sunbathing platform:&nbsp;Butterflies adore a warm sunny spot, so give them somewhere to sunbathe by placing a wide flat stone in a sunny spot in your garden to absorb heat for them to enjoy.</li>
	<li>Leave caterpillar-friendly areas:&nbsp;Butterflies are only half the story: caterpillars need catering for, too. A patch of nettles is perfect caterpillar food, and other plants caterpillars enjoy include mallow (Malva moschata) and mullein (Verbascum bombyciferum).</li>
	<li>Butterfly-friendly plants:&nbsp;The more nectar-rich your plants, the happier your butterflies. They&#39;ll flock to buddleja, sedum, red valerian, scabious, Michaelmas daisies and aubretia &ndash; so plant plenty in your garden.</li>
</ul>

Please ask the staff in our Surrey&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about attracting bees and butterflies to your garden.

Bee and butterfly gardening

One of the best things about having a garden packed with annual flowers is that it&#39;s also full of wildlife.&nbsp;Butterflies, bees and other pollinating insects like hoverflies adore open annual flowers: birds will be hot on&nbsp;their heels after the big, generous seedheads.

Here&#39;s our pick of the five best varieties from the range in our garden centre to attract insects into your Surrey garden.

For butterflies:

Marigolds (Calendula officinalis): cheery orange flowers which are adored by butterflies 
Honesty (Lunaria annua): lots of simple, open pink or white flowers butterflies can reach easily 
Stocks (Matthiola): the scent of these cottage-garden favourites attracts butterflies in from miles around

For bees:

Phacelia tanacetifolia: fuzzy smoke-blue flowers on dense foliage which bees find irresistible 
Cornflowers (Centaurea cyanus): choose native blue types and they&#39;ll be smothered in bees 
Forget-me-not (Myosotis): these late-spring arrivals provide much-needed early nectar for emerging bees

For birds:

Sunflowers (Helianthus annuus):&nbsp;leave old sunflower heads in place for upside-down bluetits to feast on 
Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena):&nbsp;architectural seedheads provide valuable food for birds 
Teasels (Dipsacus fullonum):&nbsp;biennial, flowering in its second year, goldfinches adore spiky teasel heads

Please ask the staff in our Surrey&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about choosing annuals to attract&nbsp;wildlife.

Annuals for Wildlife

Birds are often a mixed blessing in the garden: they&#39;ll swipe your berries, but while they&#39;re at it they&#39;ll also strip aphids from your roses, eat small slugs and hoover up caterpillars too. On the whole, they do far more good than harm: and besides, they&#39;re lovely to watch as they flit around your plants, bringing your garden to life with song and colour.

In our Surrey&nbsp;garden centre you&#39;ll find all you need to encourage a thriving population of garden birds to visit, from sparrows to woodpeckers. Follow our top five tips to make your garden into a haven for your feathery friends.

<ul>
	<li>Install a pond:&nbsp;birds appreciate a water feature more than anything. They&#39;ll go down to the pond to take a drink and have a little bath, and have a snack on the insects it attracts, too! We have both rigid preformed liners or butyl liner to make your own shape in our garden centre.</li>
	<li>Put up bird feeders:&nbsp;a range of different feeders on a stand, available in our garden centre, lets you provide everything from peanuts, in wider wire mesh feeders, to seed, dispensed through a plastic tube. A table catches waste and holds raisins, chopped apples and grated cheese. Don&#39;t forget to fit a squirrel guard to keep the long-tailed thieves away!</li>
	<li>Provide the right food:&nbsp;in winter, garden birds need more fat to help them keep on weight in the cold &ndash; you&#39;ll find fat balls and cakes in our garden centre. But in summer, it&#39;s better to eed a good-quality seed mix. Good year-round feeds include black sunflower seeds, nyger, peanuts and mealworms.</li>
	<li>Grow berrying shrubs:&nbsp;this is the most natural food for birds and one that will draw them in in their hundreds. Red-berrying shrubs like cotoneaster, pyracantha and spindle berry are most popular, followed by the orange berries of berberis and rowans: they seem to like white berries least.</li>
	<li>Leave seedheads on:&nbsp;don&#39;t be too quick to tidy up once annuals and perennials have died back in autumn, as birds really appreciate the contents of their dried seedheads. Sunflowers, globe thistles, teasels, mullein and evening primrose are all much appreciated.</li>
</ul>

Looking after garden birds

Looking after the wildlife in your garden is a must! Read these helpful articles below on tips and tricks.&nbsp;

Birds are often a mixed blessing in the garden: they&#39;ll swipe your berries, but while they&#39;re at it they&#39;ll also strip aphids from your roses, eat small slugs and hoover up caterpillars too. On the whole, they do far more good than harm: and besides, they&#39;re lovely to watch as they flit around your plants, bringing your garden to life with song and colour.

In our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre you&#39;ll find all you need to encourage a thriving population of garden birds to visit, from sparrows to woodpeckers. Follow our top five tips to make your garden into a haven for your feathery friends.

<ul>
	<li>Install a pond: birds appreciate a water feature more than anything. They&#39;ll go down to the pond to take a drink and have a little bath, and have a snack on the insects it attracts, too!&nbsp;</li>
	<li>
	Put up bird feeders: a range of different feeders on a stand, available in our garden centre, lets you provide everything from peanuts, in wider wire mesh feeders, to seed, dispensed through a plastic tube. A table catches waste and holds raisins, chopped apples and grated cheese. Don&#39;t forget to fit a squirrel guard to keep the long-tailed thieves away!
	</li>
	<li>Provide the right food: in winter, garden birds need more fat to help them keep on weight in the cold &ndash; you&#39;ll find fat balls and cakes in our garden centre. But in summer, it&#39;s better to feed a good-quality seed mix. Good year-round feeds include black sunflower seeds, nyger, peanuts and mealworms.</li>
	<li>
	Grow berrying shrubs: this is the most natural food for birds and one that will draw them in in their hundreds. Red-berrying shrubs like cotoneaster, pyracantha and spindle berry are most popular, followed by the orange berries of berberis and rowans: they seem to like white berries least.
	</li>
	<li>Leave seedheads on: don&#39;t be too quick to tidy up once annuals and perennials have died back in autumn, as birds really appreciate the contents of their dried seedheads. Sunflowers, globe thistles, teasels, mullein and evening primrose are all much appreciated.</li>
</ul>

Wildlife Gardening at Ashtead Park

A selection of Wildlife Gardening at Ashtead Park

Potted bulbs for Spring colour!

Wildlife Gardening at Ashtead Park

A selection of Wildlife Gardening at Ashtead Park

Bird and bug homes

Bird Food

Bird Feeders

Clematis

Geraniums

Lavender

Chives

Bird Table

Classic Seed Blend

Nice Nuts

Scrummy Sunflower Seeds

Seed Box

Simply Sunflower Seeds

Fat Balls

Fat Balls

Fat Ball Station

Water Dish

Bird Feeder Pole

Seed Tray

Suet Treat

Coconut Feeder

No More Mess Bird Food

Multi Nester Box

Loktop Bird Feeders & Squirrel Baffles