Birds, bees, butterflies, bugs, bats, native plants and night-scented flowers have all figured in my postbag in recent weeks.

All these subjects have much in common and might be grouped together as important features in a wildlife garden.

The greater the variety of plants we grow, both wild and cultivated, the greater the number of pollinating insects we shall attract.

The most unusual request of 2003 came from a gardener who wanted to know how to attract bats into her garden. The answer can only be to plan a garden that's likely to be attractive to wildlife in general and bats, hopefully, will be among the resultant visitors.

Bats need somewhere to roost and shelter so you can put up bat-boxes and a stretch of dry-stone walling where bats often love to roost. This isn't all-important because the bats that visit my garden regularly seem to come from miles around.

They come for their staple diet of insects. These in turn are attracted by night-scented flowers which attract moths and night-flying insects. Insects are also attracted to bright white lights and a light of some kind, preferably solar-powered, will draw the flying insects and the bats to feed on them. The risk of causing what is commonly called light pollution, annoying the neighbours among others, can be minimised by adding shielding.

Night-scented flowers are a boon. My favourite night-bloomer is the evening primrose which seeds itself all over the garden, appearing as if by magic in dull corners which it brings to light with clumps of glorious bloom often as much as six feet high.

There are a good many kinds of evening primrose. Some are charming dwarf species and some come in unexpected colours, like the cultivar known as 'Sunset Boulevard', the flowers of which open as orange and then turn gradually to an attractive red.

By Jim Roberts