A magnificent wildflower mix to attract beneficial insects and pollinators to your garden!

This mix isn't decorative, it's functional, and its composition answers a precise anatomical constraint. The insects that rid you of pests — hoverflies, lacewings, ladybugs and above all parasitoid wasps — are mostly tiny and have very short tongues. A large deep flower, magnificent for a bumblebee, is completely out of reach for them. What they need is tiny flowers grouped in flat umbels, where the nectar sits exposed at the surface. That's exactly what the dill, caraway, coriander and fennel in this mix are: umbellifers, the family these insects depend on.

Annuals: Sweet White Alyssum, Dill, Caraway, Coriander, Sensation White Cosmos, Florence Fennel, Buckwheat, Statice and Lilliput Zinnia.

Perennials: White Yarrow, Alyssum, Wild Bergamot, Butterfly Weed, Alfalfa, Gloriosa Daisy, Lemon Balm, Rocky Mountain Penstemon, Evening Primrose, Black-Eyed Susan, Maximilian Sunflower and Goldenrod.

What it actually delivers: a single hoverfly larva eats several hundred aphids before turning into an adult, and parasitoid wasps lay their eggs in caterpillars and aphids, which they destroy from the inside. Feeding the adults with accessible nectar is what keeps them on site and gives them what they need to lay. It's biological control, far prettier than an insecticide.

Grower's tip: placement matters as much as the mix. These insects have a very short range, often only a few metres. A strip of flowers at the back of the yard won't protect the tomatoes at the other end: you have to sow in or against the vegetable garden — along the edge, in strips between rows, or in the corners of beds. For the sowing itself: clear bare soil, broadcast the seed, press firmly without covering, and don't fertilize.

• Open-pollinated.
• Sow ~4 g per 3 square metres.
• Prefers full sun or part shade.
• Sow directly outdoors early May to mid-June, or mid-September to late October.
• Sow IN or AGAINST the vegetable garden: beneficial insects don't travel far.
• Press without covering. Don't fertilize.