Up until recently, the usual answer to this question was an emphatic yes. Now though, this long-held view is being subjected to more scrutiny and it seems that picking plants for the garden that will help bugs, and by extension birds and mammals, is not quite so straightforward, even for the experts.

A lack of space can often be an issue for city plots. But urban gardener Keith Reynolds believes that big ideas can still flourish in small places.

Marsh Lane Allotments in Tottenham are exactly as you would expect. A barred iron gate opens on to a landscape of neat rows of fruit and vegetables interspersed with an idiosyncratic collection of greenhouses and sheds. Exactly as you would expect that is, until, walking down a row of sheds, you come to something that looks oddly like a front door, with the number 94 marked out in mosaic. Step through it, and, suddenly, the vista is very different.