Building shelter for our garden beneficial insects
"Man does not live by bread alone," as the saying goes, and this applies to wild animals as well. In addition to suitable food, they need shelter and nesting opportunities. We have a few tips you should have up your sleeve for your beneficiaries!
Building shelter for our garden beneficial insects
The pile of stones
There isn't always enough space or a suitable location in the garden for a dry stone wall. However, dwellers in dry stone wall cracks also like piles of stones, and it's easier to find a sunny or shady spot for one. The animals appreciate both lighting conditions.
If you want to place a pile of stones in your garden, you should first consider safety aspects. If small children are playing in the garden, you need to make sure the pile isn't too high, doesn't contain particularly sharp stones, and won't slide if it's stepped on. Also, ask yourself where a child would fall if they slipped off the pile.
Ideally, you should build a pile of stones on a sandy-loamy subsoil about 40 cm deep, and expand the subsoil by at least one meter in all possible directions. Ground-nesting wild bees can also build their nests there. Often, a combination of a pile of stones and a "wild corner"—an area where blackberries, nettles, and other plants grow—is a good fit, providing a place for the compost heap.
The pile of leaves
Sunny but sheltered areas are ideal for leaf piles, while exposed areas are less suitable. Partially shaded to shady areas are also suitable, such as the edge of a hedge.
On the one hand, a pile of leaves acts as a thermal insulator for animals that seek shelter there in winter. These include snakes, slowworms, toads, and the most popular garden creature, the hedgehog. The hedgehog is almost magnetically attracted to piles of leaves, as it finds tasty morsels like earthworms underneath.
Therefore, don't burn a pile of leaves you gathered a few days ago. A hedgehog might already have moved in. Incidentally, burning leaves is prohibited in most cases anyway. In Germany, what is permitted and where is regulated by state law.
If you want to deliberately create a hedgehog habitat, the pile of leaves shouldn't be located in a depression, where rainwater collects. The pile can also alternate between leaves and layers of branches and grass. Those who prefer a more organized approach can also buy or build a hedgehog house.
If you still want to feed your hedgehog in the fall, don't give it milk, as it will give it diarrhea. Hedgehogs are carnivores, and there's special hedgehog food for them. Mealworms, wet dog or cat food, or unsalted scrambled eggs will also do in a pinch.
In addition to shelter, the leaf pile also provides food for leaf-eating beetles, woodlice, worms, and similar creepy crawlies, which in turn are enjoyed by hedgehogs and songbirds. The natural garden operates in a circular fashion; nothing is wasted; everything is useful.
Deadwood pile
Deadwood is extremely valuable. More than 1,400 species of beetles and their larvae colonize dead wood. This could be a dead tree left standing, in which a woodpecker builds its nest, which is then colonized by new tenants such as nuthatches, starlings, or sparrows.
Wild bees lay their eggs in smaller tunnels. Lying dead wood is colonized by mosses, fungi and bacteria, ants, parasitic wasps, and fireflies.
Create a deadwood pile
Such a pile can consist of various thin and thick branches, tree stumps, rotten fence posts, pieces of roots, and much more. Use only untreated wood without protruding nails. Loosely stacked in a crisscross pattern, this creates hollow spaces where slowworms and other predators can feel safe.
Additionally, you can plant natural barbed wire, such as blackberries or roses, or wrap their cut shoots around the pile. This works wonders against cats, the main predator of mice and wrens. The wood at the bottom of the pile will rot over time. This creates water-retaining wood pulp, the ideal habitat for many insect larvae. The process causes the pile to sink, so you can continually add more material. Again, the magic word is variety: thick and thin wood, soft and hardwood, fresh and slightly rotten, this way you offer a variety of animals something suitable.
Special form of Benjeshecke
A special type of deadwood pile is the Benjeshecke (benjeshecke). Where a hedge is to grow, posts are driven into the ground every 1–2 meters, spaced at least 0.5 meters apart. The posts serve as supports for branches, which are stacked horizontally between them. These branches should be as mixed as possible; even freshly cut ones are acceptable. Some will take root upon contact with the ground and form a living new hedge. Birds take care of the rest, foraging among the stacked branches and excreting seeds of various fruiting trees such as hawthorn, yew, barberry, etc. These will then sprout into new shrubs.
A home for insects
About a third of wild bees nest in hollow stems and beetle tunnels. To provide a home for these species, the most practical solution is to simply leave a dead tree to itself. This is assuming there is a dying tree in the garden and it doesn't pose a threat to any building or pet if it falls.
To prevent a fall, you can secure such a tree with anchoring irons. It's best to saw off any overly thick, rotten branches. They're best placed in the deadwood pile. A dead tree can also be covered with a rambler's rose. However, since these can develop considerable weight over time, the tree should be supported.
If there is no suitable tree in the garden, you can anchor round or squared timber posts vertically as insect homes or drill into the supports of an existing pergola.
The prerequisites for this:
- Only hardwood may be used. Coniferous wood is too resinous, and the delicate insect wings would stick to it.
- The wood must be untreated.
- The holes should have a diameter of 2–9 mm and be drilled with a sharp drill bit. You may need to trim the edges with a hole file to prevent insect wings from getting caught on wood splinters. Position the holes on the leeward side.
Ready-made insect hotels
A less time-consuming option is to purchase a so-called insect hotel. Unfortunately, the wide range of commercially available materials also includes many unsuitable items: cross-cut, splintery tree trunks, pine cones, stones, and much more. What insect nests among rounded-grain stones?
Reed or bamboo stalks cut and bundled with a sharp knife are a good alternative. Unfired clay, into which some insects can dig their own burrows, is also valuable. Nature conservation organizations offer comprehensive online information, for example, on bumblebee nesting boxes. These organizations also offer tips on overwintering boxes for butterflies that overwinter as moths, such as the brimstone butterfly and the peacock butterfly, or for lacewings. Sometimes, they even provide free construction instructions.
Hiding places for earwigs
Hiding places for earwigs are nice and easy to build. Simply stuff wood shavings into clay pots, attach a mesh or wire mesh over the opening, and hang the pot upside down in a fruit tree.
The suspension should create a connection to a branch through which the “earwigs” (Austrian term for earwigs) can reach their hiding place.
Although they are omnivores, aphids are also on their menu, so they can safely be called beneficial insects.
If you don't have a tree, you can also place the clay pot hiding places on hazel branches and place them in the perennial bed. Feel free to be creative with your design!
Special needs of animals
What many people consider disorderly or inhospitable, such as a musty, damp environment, dark cracks, or hot stones, actually makes the various piles a premium habitat for many animals.
beetle
The lives of numerous beetle species are inextricably linked to deadwood, including the aforementioned stag beetle, some jewel beetles, and longhorn beetles. Bark beetles are also among them, but we'll ignore them here. Longhorn beetles are easily recognizable by their particularly long, segmented, backward-curved antennae, reminiscent of the horns of an ibex. While their larvae feed on deadwood, adult beetles feed on pollen, flower parts, or tree sap. They therefore find ideal conditions in a flower-rich, species-rich natural garden.
Fireflies are also beetles. Their larvae live in piles of leaves and dead wood, where they primarily feed on snails, including the unpopular Spanish slug. Flying fireflies are always males of the small firefly, which is trying to attract females. Females can also glow while sitting for the same purpose.
Ants
Thirty native ant species build their nests in or with dead wood. Some ants are so small that they can even nest in a thin twig. Larger specimens, such as the glossy black carpenter ant, which can grow up to 7 mm in size, build a kind of cardboard out of chewed wood, which they combine with honeydew, the sugar-rich secretion of aphids. This sweet cardboard provides an optimal habitat for fungi, which, in turn, stabilize the ant nest with their meshwork.
This is just a small example of the infinite number of connections in nature. One thing depends on the other. If we remove too many of these building blocks, our entire world will be shaken.
Unpleasant roommates
Even if some people are disgusted by certain animals, they all have their place in the natural order. Therefore, even ground-dwelling insectivores, such as shrews, which aren't actually mice in the true sense of the word, suffer from the decline in insect numbers, environmental toxins, and excessive order in gardens and the landscape.
The slowworm may look like a snake, but it's actually a lizard in the family of slowworms. It's not truly blind, just visually impaired, and therefore relies heavily on its sense of smell and touch for orientation. Besides basking in the sun, it also likes to live on dark humus, on moss cushions, in hollows under tree roots, or in stacked firewood. It feeds on snails, earthworms, woodlice, beetles, larvae, and the like.
Spiders are certainly not among most people's favorite pets. It's all the better if a species-rich natural garden offers them sufficient outdoor habitat. They lurk in dead wood, under pieces of bark, and the like, finding small insects as prey.
Try to see your natural garden through different eyes than those of a human. What's missing? Of course, you should also feel comfortable in your garden, so often even small changes in design or maintenance are enough to do many animal species a favor. Consider this when planning your garden.
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The content of this article is from the book:
Paula Polak
Designing low-maintenance natural gardens
Good for biodiversity – relaxing for people
Price 22,00 €
ISBN: 978-3-96747-062-8
BLV Publishing
Natural gardens not only make a valuable contribution to preserving biodiversity, but also inspire with their high recreational value. Experienced garden planner Paula Polak explains all the elements that characterize natural gardens and shows you how to plan them step by step.
