I started my first pollinator patch two summers ago, mostly because I had read something in Garden Plants Sale and felt guilty about the tidy strip of grass along my back fence. Three steps wide and no plan. So I did the least organised thing possible and stopped mowing it.

That first season the grass just grew long and shaggy and I spent most of June convinced I had made a mistake. Then the clover came up on its own, and the buttercups, and something with small blue flowers I still cannot name. By July there were bees on it every morning before I had finished my coffee.

The big lesson was timing. One burst of flowers in June is lovely, then it is over. The second year I planted things that take turns: cow parsley and honesty early, lavender in July, asters in September and sedum holding on into the first frost. Something is always open, so the bees come back instead of going next door.

The other addition was a shallow dish of water with a few stones in it so nothing drowns. I top it up when I remember. By August it is the busiest spot in the garden, wasps included. I have made my peace with that.

I gave up spraying that first year, half out of laziness, half because I did not want to poison the things I had just invited in. The aphids turned up anyway. So did the ladybirds, and the patch sorted itself out without me. There are chewed leaves. I have stopped minding.

What I did not expect was the sitting. Some mornings I am out at seven with a mug, watching a bee work the lavender like it is paid by the hour. That is the garden I want now. A bit scruffy, a bit uneven, and loud with wings.