I've just been enjoying a country walk on a perfect summer's day, through grassy meadows surrounded by butterflies. As I walked, a sea of meadow browns, speckled woods, gate keepers, ringlets and marbled whites were zooming over the grass, looking for nectar-laden hard heads and thistles.

The marbled white, despite its black and white wings, is also a member of the brown butterfly tribe (the Satyridae ) and it's one of the most dazzling sights of midsummer.

Brown butterflies lay their eggs on meadow grasses and I have always left areas of long grass in my own gardens and, as a result, I've been rewarded with many species of brown butterfly. They have been most drawn towards marjoram flowers (Origanum vulgare), which I grown aplenty in sunny areas. I've also tried to mimic the colours of a hay meadow in my own sunnier borders by using the soft, floppy Stipa tenuissima as the bleached canvas grass.

I've studded dainty wands of magenta-pink Dianthus carthusianorum, deep-blue agapanthus, the purple Salvia Christine Yeo' and the dark-purple lavender Imperial Gem' to act as the jewel-like flowers.

This is a much easier proposition than creating a real meadow planting, something which can take 50 years or more.

If this warm weather holds, late July and August (and even September) should also be butterfly-rich months, too, and our native species are likely to be joined by immigrants from the continent, like the fast-flying Painted Ladies.

These later butterflies adore daisies, and their wide open flowers make perfect landing stages.

The bright ray petals, which can come in a range of colours, surround a disc (or cone) of tiny flowers packed together.

Each of these flowers has a supply of pollen and nectar and you can see the butterflies unwinding their long tongues to suck up the nectar.

When considering which daisies to grow, and where to place them, it is worth remembering that the ancient word daisy is a corruption of day's eye'. This indicates their need for a sunny position.

However, many of the best later-season daisies also need moist soil and in their native environment they are often plants of damp meadows. Place them where late afternoon sun falls to make them user-friendly to butterflies, because more butterflies are on the wing in the afternoons.

The sturdiest daisies of all are the echinaceas, or purple cone flowers, and they are easy to grow from seed. Sow in March and plant them out in June for August flowers. There are white and purple varieties on offer from most seed companies.

If you enjoy sowing seeds, the easy annual Gloriosa Daisies (Rudbeckia hirta) are also wonderful for butterflies. Most have golden-yellow petals set round dark centres. However, Irish Eyes' is green-centred and I have found this earlier to flower than the very similar, award-winning and expensive Prairie Sun'.

My all-time favourite variety is Indian Summer' from Suttons Seeds (0870 220 0606) and this outshone all the others at the recent RHS Wisley trial.

There are also dwarf varieties (that look rather stunted) and ragged doubles which are not so butterfly proboscis-friendly. The perennial rudbeckias also make excellent garden plants and the clump-forming Rudbeckia Goldsturm' is an excellent doer.

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