If beneficial insects are romping about in the garden, you can confidently do without pesticides of all kinds. Important criteria must be observed so that the animal protection aid in the fight against pests arrives with you. This guide explains how you can make spending time in the garden palatable for the hard-working helpers.

Ladybugs are pretty and useful

Top premise: chemistry is now taboo

If a garden is cultivated according to ecological principles, it magically attracts small and large beneficial insects. An area mined by artificial fertilizers and pesticides is consistently avoided by insects, birds and small animals. If, on the other hand, an organic nutrient supply with compost, stable manure or horn shavings (32.93€) is at the top of the agenda, beneficial insects will not be long in coming. This applies all the more if you rigorously rely on non-toxic crop protection.

These habitats attract beneficial insects

If you are creating a new garden, please plan a dry stone wall. By laying stone on stone without mortar, dry retreats are created that insects, amphibians and other beneficial insects cannot resist. For areas that have been planted and overgrown for a long time, there are numerous options available so that garden helpers from the animal kingdom can settle here. The following recommendations may serve as your inspiration:

  • Plant mixed hedges for nesting and wintering
  • Leave piles of leaves in the fall
  • Hang insect hotels, birdhouses, bat boxes
  • Build cat-proof hedgehog houses and set them up in a protected location
  • Fill flowerpots with wood shavings and set them upside down

Rotten trees are invaluable to beneficial creatures of all kinds. Therefore, leave one or the other tree trunk in the garden. After some time there is more activity in it than when the tree was alive.

Increase the population of beneficial insects through additional purchases

The settlement of beneficial insects in the garden can be forced by supplementing the recommended measures with the purchase of bred animals. Farms have specialized in this and offer larvae or adult insects that prey on pests. The advantage is that different beneficial insects have their sights set on several types of pests. The following examples show you how:

  • Lacewing (Chrysoperla carnea): Cardboard combs with larvae hanging in plants against aphids, thrips, spider mites
  • Steinernema feltiae nematodes: apply to fruit trees in clay powder to control codling moth
  • Ichneumon wasp (Encarsia formosa): fights whiteflies on crops such as tomatoes
  • Ladybug: eats aphids on ornamental and useful plants in the garden and behind glass

When purchasing ladybirds, please ensure that they are native species, such as the two-spot ladybird (Adalia bipunctata) or the seven-spot ladybird (Adalia bipunctata). As a result of the introduction of the Asian ladybird (Harmonia axyridis), the native species are threatened with extinction.

tips

With runner ducks, you settle a powerful troop in the garden to teach greedy snails to fear. But other pests are also on their menu. In order for the flightless waterfowl to feel comfortable, a pond, a small stable and a man-high enclosure are required. As sociable herd animals, the lively beneficial creatures should not be expected to live as singles.

Category:

Animals in the garden