Gardening organically affords many benefits to
both ourselves and the environment, and all organic gardeners
recognise the advantages that gardening with nature brings.
The active encouragement of beneficial insects and their canny
employment around the garden not only helps to remove pest
species in a natural and efficient way but also maintains the
balance of wildlife in the garden environment, making it less
likely that any one species will increase enough to overwhelm
another or cause problems to crops. But we are gardeners and
not entomologists and sometimes a little help is required to
sort the good from the bad, especially if you are new to
organic gardening. Amongst all the insects and other
invertebrates in your garden, there are a few worth getting to
know better, as they form the backbone of the useful army of
natural predators.
Beetles Where beneficial
insects are concerned, the ladybird is perhaps the best
known. Fortunately this little beetle is easy to like, its
bright red wings dotted with black making it a familiar and
much loved garden insect. But most beetles have an important
role in the garden. Many eat dead or decaying plant material,
including wood, and therefore help to recycle waste garden
material, increasing soil fertility. Some of the larger
ground beetles, including the very handsome violet ground
beetle, eat slugs so are very useful predators if your garden
suffers from an excess of these creatures. Beetles are
generally found sheltering under vegetation, logs and stones,
in fact anywhere they might find their prey.
Everyone's
favourite beetle, the ladybird, can be found in almost any
part of the garden. There are over forty different
species in this country, but several are declining and are now
quite rare. Ladybirds are particularly welcome in
gardens as they and their dark grey larvae will eat large
quantities of greenfly and blackfly, scale insects and
whitefly. It has been estimated that an adult ladybird
will eat up to 100 aphids a day. Encouraging them can be
simply a matter of making sure that you have a few aphids
around (easy for most of us) but ladybird homes and ladybird
attracting chemicals are now available to keep these beetles
in your garden where they are needed. Perhaps the most
effective way of ensuring that they are available where you
want them is to make sure that they have somewhere safe to
spend the winter. You can make your own ladybird
winter homes with bundles of hollow plant stems pushed under a
hedge or into dense vegetation around the garden. Most
importantly, always wait until March or even April (depending
on where you live) before tidying up all your herbaceous
plants. Ladybirds and many other small useful creatures
will spend a safe winter sheltering in the dead flower stalks
or under piles of leaves. When they emerge in the first warm
days of spring they will be just where you need them and over
several winters their numbers will increase. Like all
wild creatures, population numbers naturally have good and bad
years, but surviving the winter is an adult ladybird’s most
difficult life task. They have few natural predators so
increasing their survival rate through the winter by
ensuring shelter for them is the most positive thing you can
do to help them.
Solitary bees In recent years solitary bees have
become better recognised for the fantastic job they do
pollinating fruit and vegetables. The vast majority of bee
species that we see in the garden are solitary bees; they do
not live in large social colonies in the way that honeybees do
and can be found in a variety of habitats. Many solitary bees
species are garden dwellers and the small red mason bee is one
that many gardeners are now actively encouraging. These are
very effective pollinators and good to have around if children
use your garden, as they virtually never sting. They can be
out and about at much lower temperatures than the honeybee and
pollinate at a rate of 15 to 20 flowers per minute, almost
twice the honeybee’s rate. Red mason bees occur naturally in
most gardens and as well as planting a selection of good
nectar and pollen producing flowers in your borders for them
you could also include a nesting box. Again it is not
necessary to buy a special home for them as you can make your
own with hollow plant stems and stalks of varying diameters.
Other types of solitary bee will also use these homemade nest
homes, especially some of the species of leaf cutter bee,
which also pollinate for us.
Hoverflies Apart from bees there are plenty of other
beneficial flying insects that we can encourage, and
hoverflies must be top of the list. These small striped
insects are sometimes mistaken for tiny wasps, but their quick
darting flight and ability to hover over the flowers they are
visiting distinguishes them from wasps which have a more lazy
way of flying. Hoverflies are complicated insects – many
mimic other insects including honeybees, bumblebees, wasps and
flies and sometimes it is difficult to identify a hoverfly for
this reason. As mainly pollen feeders, hoverflies help to
pollinate the flowers they visit, the adult insects seeking
out flowers with easy access. These helpful insects can be
encouraged to any flower where the stamens and their pollen
grains are obviously visible, including well-known attractants
such as the poached egg plant and baby blue eyes, but also
many types of poppy, hardy geranium, some golden rods, even
open flowered Dahlias, so there is plenty of choice. There
are 266 species of hoverfly of all sizes in Britain and like
the ladybirds some are in decline. Again, like the ladybirds,
these harmless creatures have larvae that eat aphids, making
them essential insects to have around in any garden or on the
allotment.
Wasps Few of us like
wasps, for obvious reasons! However, the common wasp is a
great predator, taking large numbers of caterpillars back to
the nest to feed its young. Many other small invertebrates
are also eaten by the larvae, but the adult insects are fond
of all sorts of sweet things including the nectar of certain
flowers, those of ivy being a favourite. There is little need
to do anything to actively encourage wasps – as tireless
hunters they will find their prey with ease.
Lacewings Lacewings are familiar to most of us, the
most common type having delicate green wings with a fine
tracery of veins. We may find them tucked away somewhere in
the garden in the winter months or even inside the house as,
like moths, they are attracted to light. Like many insects
they need to hibernate through the winter and may choose a
pile of logs, a crack in a wooden fence, thick vegetation or
gaps in your window frames to find some protection from the
elements. Like ladybirds and hoverflies they also eat aphids
and a bug home with a variety of nooks and crannies will aid
their survival.
Those of us who prefer to garden organically
are well aware of the beneficial wildlife that can make our
gardening easier and more enjoyable. These insects are just a
few of the legions of creatures that are out there, helping us
as they go about their business, maintaining a balance that
can only be achieved in this most natural way. |
