Insects play an important role in the ecological balance of your garden. Bees, butterflies, hoverflies, beetles and numerous other species provide you with valuable help in natural plant care as pest exterminators and pollinators. Reason enough to offer the beneficial insects ideal framework conditions. How to create an insect friendly garden.

Insect hotels offer insects protection from rain

Gourmet buffet for insects - these plants invite you to linger

With a clever choice of plants, your garden becomes a paradise for people and insects. Although many insects are fixated on certain plants, you can create a valuable habitat for the beneficial insects with a multi-faceted mixed culture. The following selection may serve as your inspiration when you create a new bed in the near future:

  • Orchard: cornel, sloe, black elder, cultivated apple, raspberry, blackberry
  • Herb bed: wild garlic, dill, sage, chives, lemon balm, all kinds of mint
  • Perennial bed: meadow yarrow, columbine, daisy, cornflower, martagon lily, summer lilac

If you decorate your garden with roses, please give preference to single-flowering varieties. Double rose petals are a disappointing cheat pack for insects, because here they usually look in vain for pollen and nectar. Native wild roses, such as the dog rose or cinnamon rose, on the other hand, are a table set for busy bees, bumblebees and butterflies.

Settle insects - tips for the best retreats

Only with a real home is your garden the ideal refuge for insects. The following recommendations achieve maximum benefit with little effort:

  • Build dry stone walls and cairns in sunny locations
  • Plant mixed hedges as a fence with deciduous, evergreen and reinforced shrubs
  • Set up insect hotels and nest tubes in trees and in rain-protected locations
  • Leave piles of leaves swept up in autumn
  • Do not clear away rotten tree trunks or piles of brushwood
  • Fill flowerpots with wood shavings and hang upside down

Pesticides and artificial fertilizers no longer come through the garden gate so that a motley crowd of insects can find their way into your green kingdom. Toxic and chemical substances of all kinds in plant care are not only harmful to the health of beneficial insects.

tips

If insects have the building material for building their nests in the garden, they will happily set up their nursery here. If you think of open loam and sand areas when designing your garden, potted wasps, mason bees and willow sand bees can make use of them here. In the hot summer, a constantly damp puddle of clay is a welcome watering hole and insect hardware store at the same time.

Category:

Animals in the garden