As
winter approaches do you look forward to the first glimpse of
a brimstone butterfly or anticipate the friendly drone of a
queen bumblebee in the spring? If you do, and which gardener
doesn’t, then this is the time to make sure that the insects
and other invertebrates that have chosen to reside in your
garden have somewhere safe to spend the winter. Many of the
smaller garden creepy crawlies don’t make it through the
colder weather, indeed many invertebrates have life cycles
that mean the majority of that particular species are not
designed to see another spring. Honey bee numbers in a hive
for example, reduce naturally to a small nucleus of
individuals; enough bees to begin a new colony in the spring,
but a small enough number to survive on existing honey
supplies until nectar and pollen are available again. Many
caterpillars and moths spend the winter as pupae in a
protective cocoon or hard shelled chrysalis, and other insects
reduce their bodily functions to a basic minimum level and
hibernate the winter cold away. The winter months can be
difficult for all our native wildlife but there are many
positive steps we can, and should, take as gardeners to ensure
we start the new growing year with a good complement of
useful, beneficial creatures around us.
Anyone
who has ever placed a garden cane in the ground knows that
insects are ready and willing to find their own shelter. If
in late summer you stake dahlias or gladioli as I sometimes do
you, will do doubt know how readily earwigs find their way
into the naturally hollow centres of bamboo canes. An
overturned stone may reveal a clutch of wood lice or a stack
of clay pots contain snails tucked up ready for the winter.
Some of these creatures gardeners may feel better off without,
but these winter hiding places can give us a clue as to the
kind of shelter smaller creatures need to survive harsh
weather.
Ready
made insect shelters are now available in just about every
mail order catalogue, whether it specialises in gardening
products or not. While these can be fun for children learning
about the natural world, by and large they are an unnecessary
expense for the wildlife gardener. It is easy to make your
own bee and ladybird shelters and others – butterfly homes for
example – simply don’t work and are a waste of money. Perhaps
more importantly, we should be conscious of the natural places
around our gardens and allotments which these creatures may
use for hibernation, make sure there are plenty of these nooks
and crannies and most important of all, ensure that they are
left completely undisturbed.
Razing
borders to the ground in the autumn to ‘tidy them up’ has
happily become a thing of the past in most gardens. The idea
that we leave all seed heads and other vegetation standing
through the winter is, I suspect, something of a fashion
statement amongst celebrity gardeners but to the rest of us it
makes perfect sense - there is no doubt that it creates areas
of great benefit to wildlife. Cutting back herbaceous borders
in autumn may make for a neat garden through the winter, but
in doing so you are destroying lots of sheltered sites for all
sorts of invertebrates as well as the occasional hedgehog.
Seed pods of many cottage garden plants and wildflowers will
house ladybirds and other small beetles, as well as providing
plenty of interest in the frosty winter garden. Hollow stalks
are also a brilliant refuge for hibernating invertebrates, and
plenty of plants have these natural cavities within their
stems. Leaving them all standing will shelter many creatures
which in turn may feed others. If small spiders or over
wintering aphids have made their winter home here, blue tits,
great tits, wrens and robins will seek them out at a time when
natural food is scarce. Leaving winter stems generally means
that the soil is also left alone, not turned over in the
traditional way. Pull out the odd weed by all means but
beneath the soil surface many soil dwellers find protection.
However if you are plagued with small slugs, leatherjackets or
wireworms, you may prefer to expose these in the vegetable
garden to your local robins and blackbirds although it may
mean the sacrifice of more friendly and useful creatures.
If you
have long grass with wild flowers in your garden you hopefully
found time to cut it in September, or October is not too late
as long as the month is not very wet. Neglecting these
‘haymaking’ tasks in autumn means that over time the quality
of your meadow will decrease and a once floriferous area can
become a sea of grass, which is a less useful wildlife habitat
at all times of year. But whatever type of garden you have,
by leaving at least some long grass standing through the
winter you will ensure that the diversity of invertebrates in
your plot is maintained and even increased. These winter
grassy places (similar to ‘beetle banks’ left in arable areas
by farmers) do exactly what the name implies – protect beetles
and other insects. It is possible for an area such as this to
include flowers as long as it is cut without fail in the
spring. More robust meadow plants, including knapweed,
meadowsweet, field scabious, meadow cranesbill and wild
marjoram, will survive this neglect as long as a spring cut
and rake is performed. Cutting in late March or April means
that the large numbers of creatures that have over wintered in
your beetle bank, (including voles and slug-eating shrews)
will be able to avoid your activity, or if left in the
cuttings will have time to find alternative shelter before you
return to remove the hay.
Log
piles are renowned for their ability to shelter wildlife of
all types, shapes and sizes. Piles of rotting logs provide a
home throughout the year for an almost endless list of
creatures including wood boring beetles and their larvae,
woodlice, spiders and worms, as well as animals higher up the
food chain especially newts, toads and slow worms. This is a
really important habitat in the winter providing a cool, damp
but sheltered environment where many invertebrates can
hibernate. Again the key to maintaining this as shelter is
leaving everything alone except to perhaps add more logs
gently to the pile as older ones decay and break down.
Animals will naturally take shelter in a wood pile waiting for
the wood burner or fireplace, but this drier habitat is more
likely to attract larger insects, for example butterflies and
mason bees. These insects hibernate in a variety of ways
depending upon the species. Brimstone, small tortoiseshell,
comma and peacock butterflies survive the winter as adult
insects, tucked away in wood stores, dried leaves, cracks in
fencing and bark or in the dark corner of a garden shed or
garage. Surviving a long cold winter in this way explains why
we see such sad tattered specimens in the spring. Other
butterfly species may spend the cold months as a tiny
caterpillar (common blue) or a pupa (orange tip) so these
creatures are especially vulnerable in the next few months.
Access to frost free places including the garden shed is
essential for them. Mason bees over winter as tiny pupae
sealed within holes on logs, canes, hollow stems or ready made
bee homes and bumblebee queens sleep the winter away in hollow
chambers underground.
Of
course as well as having plenty of natural shelter around for
butterflies, bees, ladybirds, lacewings and hoverflies, you
can make your own natural shelters in true Blue Peter style
(no sticky-back plastic required!). Short sections of bamboo
canes, hollow plant stems and twigs can be tied into bundles
and pushed into hedge bottoms, forks of trees, logpiles and
dry corners of a shed to accommodate ladybirds and lacewings.
You could make sure that bird nest boxes have dry bundles of
grass or wood shavings in them – these will not only habour
insects but may be used by roosting wrens or tits. Mostly
though, leave your garden alone as much as possible – slightly
dishevelled, a little overgrown and undisturbed - to allow
these useful creatures, upon which most of your more
conspicuous garden wildlife depends for food, to spend the
winter as nature intended, deep in the leaf litter, tufts of
grass and thick herbaceous vegetation until spring awakens
that brimstone or queen bumblebee to bring you joy next year. |
