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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 wildlife 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 and sadly the majority don't
actually work at all. It is easy to make your own bee
and ladybird shelters and others – butterfly homes for example
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 also 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 and 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. 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, amongst 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 and access to frost free places including the garden
shed is essential for them. 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. Mason bees over winter as tiny pupae
sealed within holes in 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, log piles 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 harbour 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. |
