Kate Morgan writes

I have just inspected all the nettles that I left to grow and there does
not seem to be a great deal of insect life on them, disappointing to say
the least, whats wrong with my nettles I would like to know :-) We do
however have a huge number of gatekeeper butterfly`s so I must be
getting something right.

I know little about this but aren't eggs laid on the undersides of leaves?
Did you actually turn the leaves over and if so, has your crop of dock
leaves greatly diminished? ;-)
You might also like to plant the lovely Eupatorium which, in our experience
here, is very much more attractive to butterflies even than Buddleia.

I have just made a close inspection and there is nothing on the nettles,
It is a bit of a pain because I had to get pretty stroppy with my
otherhalf as he wanted to cut them all down, I am not going to tell him
and I doubt he will go and look :-)
We got rid of all our docks as they were taking up valuable grazing
space so now I am reaching for the medicine box to stop the stinging !
then I am going to take a look at your suggestion of the Eupatorium.

The Eupatorium won't do the same job as the nettles. Nettles are the
food plant of the caterpillars Peacock, Small Tortoiseshell, Red Admiral
as well as a few others. Eupatorium, from what Sacha says, is attractive
to the adults for nectar, but it isn't the food plant of the larvae.

Our native Eupatorium, Eupatorium cannabinum (which may or may not be
the one Sacha means) is, however, the food plant for 3 moths - wormwood
pug, lime-speck pug and scarce burnished brass.

Or you could go another route, and try for a meadow with a good mixture
of grasses - that should bring you in the meadow brown and ringlet, and
there are about 25 different moths and butterflies whose caterpillars
feed on different varieties of grass.

But be patient. Gardening for wildlife is a long term thing. I've been
doing it for about 10 years here, and the number and range of creatures
is still increasing.
--
Kay