10 TOP TIPS
For insect-friendly gardens
1 Start growing the right kinds of flowers
There are many beautiful flowers to choose from that are highly attractive to pollinating insects (visit bit.ly/bestgardenflowers). In general, old fashioned, cottage-garden perennials are best. Many wildflowers are wonderful in the garden. Avoid double varieties, and annual bedding plants such as pansy, primula, begonia, pelargonium and busy lizzie, which are more or less useless for insects. Try out the Bumblebee Conservation Trust’s ‘BeeKind’ tool, to find out how bee friendly your garden is: bit.ly/beekindapp
2 Go chemical free and make peace with ‘pests’
Pesticides are simply not needed in a garden, and if you have gone to the trouble of planting flowers to encourage wildlife, do you really want to risk poisoning the wildlife and yourself? There are organic alternatives, or you could simply leave pests alone until something else eats them!
3 Add a water feature by digging a pond
Once you’ve created your pond, watch how quickly it is colonised by dragonflies, whirligig beetles, newts and pond skaters! Even an old sink or bath can be turned into a water feature to support lots of insect life.
4 Conserve peat bogs by buying the right compost
Most composts on sale in garden centres are peat based. Peat takes thousands of years to form, and peat bogs are vast stores of carbon. Peatlands also support many rare forms of wildlife. It is an absolute mystery to me why we continue to allow peat to be ripped from the ground for garden use, often importing it from Estonia. Once exposed to the air, it begins to oxidise and in a few years those sacks of peat will be CO2 in the atmosphere, and the peat bogs will be gone. There are excellent, sustainable alternatives.
5 Create a bee hotel or buy a ready-made one
This is a fun project that children can get involved in. See page 20 and visit discoverwildlife.com/bee-hotel to find out how to get started.
6 Treat pollinators, and yourself, to fruit trees
Provide beautiful blossom for bees, fresh fruit for yourself, and also lock up carbon as your trees grow! There are heaps of varieties of apples, pears, plum, quince, apricot, mulberry or peach to choose from. Many are available in dwarf sizes suitable for smaller gardens.
7 Reduce mowing to encourage flowers
Most lawns contain a surprising variety of flowers that will bloom if you simply relax your mowing regime. Buttercups, daisies, clovers, dandelion, selfheal and bird’s-foot trefoil are among the species likely to make an appearance. Next time you have the urge to mow, make yourself a coffee or a gin and tonic, put your feet up, and watch the bees instead! If you have room, you could even set aside part of your lawn as a wild meadow area, cutting just once per year, in late summer.
8 Build a compost heap to accommodate wildlife
Recycle kitchen scraps and garden waste into a beautiful mound of fertile compost. At the same time, you’ll be providing a home for myriad tiny creatures, including worms, centipedes, woodlice, springtails
and millipedes. My old compost heaps are used for egg-laying by grass snakes and often have bumblebee nests in them.
9 Grow your own herbs, vegetables and fruit
Many edible species produce flowers that are very attractive to pollinators. By growing your own, you are also reducing your footprint on the planet, as you’ll need to buy less from elsewhere, so you are also indirectly benefitting the environment.
10 Grow food-plants for butterflies and moths
As well as nectar and pollen, many insects need food for their offspring. Lady’s smock, bird’s-foot trefoil, ivy, sorrel and nettles are all useful foodplants for butterfly caterpillars. A hedge of mixed, native, woody shrubs can provide food for hundreds of moth species, too.
Next time you have the urge to mow, make yourself a coffee and watch the bees instead.