|
|
Invertebrates
- Dead wood provides food and
shelter to hundreds of invertebrates.
- Try drilling holes in wooden
posts to provide homes for solitary bees.
- Blackberry and raspberry flowers
are a good nectar source for invertebrates.
- Birch trees have a rich
invertebrate fauna and can attract many insect-eating feeding birds.
- Leave hollow, dead plant stems
as hibernating sites for insect predators.
- Some garden centres sell
ready-made hibernacula for beneficial insects like ladybirds and
lacewings.
- Large insects and reptiles love
to bask on mulched surfaces.
- Even a small nettle bed may help
to attract summer butterflies if it’s in a sunny spot.
- Many insects hibernate in grass
tussocks: don’t ‘tidy up’ your ornamental grasses until spring.
- A herb garden with thyme, mint,
marjoram, rosemary and chives will support butterflies and bees
throughout the summer.
- For a ‘weed’, sycamore is very
useful, producing large numbers of a few species of insect to feed the
birds.
- Don’t destroy fruiting bodies of
toadstools – they harbour dozens of rare insects.
- Winter-flowering heather, Erica
carnea, is a vital source of nectar to insects roused from hibernation
by a warm spell.
- Early-flowering shrubs like
Lonicera, Viburnum and gorse are essential for the first bees of the
year.
- Night-scented plants like
honeysuckle and Nicotiana are very attractive to moths.
- Purple loosestrife is a
spectacular wetland plant, as popular with butterflies and bees as
buddleia.
- Try to provide both nectar and
pollen early (with willows, blackthorn, hazel) and late (with eg ivy,
Michaelmas daisy) in the season.
- Don’t disturb hibernating
butterflies outside. If you wake them, they’ll use their reserves and
die before the spring.
- If you need to remove
hibernating butterflies from the house, put them in a cool dry place,
away from spiders’ webs.
|
|