Category: Precious Insects

Precious insects - 10+ simple things you can do to turn your garden into a haven for insects

1/2/2024

.As a gardener, you can do a lot to provide much-needed food and habitat to pollinators and other insects. Many of the following ideas require less of an effort than you might be putting in at the moment!

Make your garden a pesticide-free zone. (If you have a plant that is constantly infested with pests it is probably not happy in your garden - try replacing it with something else.)
Reimagine weeds as wildflowers - the difference between a flower and a weed is a judgment.
Mow your lawn less often to let flowers pop up.
Designate a "wild corner" where you do nothing whatsoever.
Most conventional nursery plants contain pesticides. Buy from an organic nursery, grow your own plants from seeds or plant-swap with other gardeners instead.
Plant pollinator-friendly flowers (such as lavender, rosemary, marjoram, comfrey, thyme, catmint, hardy geraniums - but not pelargoniums) or sow a wildflower meadow with flowers native to your region.
Plant a flowering tree (apple, cherry, willow, lime...)
Create a compost heap.
Make a log pile or a brash pile (from other parts of trees and shrubs you have chopped off, such as twigs and leaves.)
Avoid annual bedding plants (such as busy-lizzies, begonias, petunias, pansies) because they are bred in a way that makes them pretty useless for insects.
Stay away from double varieties of roses, cherries, hollyhocks and aquilegia because they are mutants that produce extra petals instead of pollen.
Remove any unnecessary sources of light from your garden. They disorient insects, disturb their hormonal clock and make them easy prey.

Random insect fact: Metamorphosing insects are the world's most successful ones - just four groups of them make up 65% of all known species on the planet (flies, bees/ants/wasps, butterflies/moths, beetles).

Are your reading this in the cold season? Find out what you can do for insects in the winter!

Source: Dave Goulson, Silent Earth - Averting the Insect Apocalypse

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Precious insects - what are all these creepy-crawlies actually good for?

18/1/2024

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Well, as a matter of fact, we don't have a clue what most insects do. There are an estimated 5 million insect species on the planet, and we've only named one fifth of them - about one million. However, if you look at what those we actually do know provide for us and the rest of the living world, it becomes clear that losing insect species is potentially catastrophic, even if their ecosystem function hasn't been discovered yet.
Let's take a look at some of the vital contributions insects make to our world:

They are at the basis of all terrestrial and freshwater food chains and food webs. The collapse of herbivore insect populations leads to a massive decline of the other insects that prey on them. They in turn are essential food for birds, bats, spiders, reptiles, amphibians, small mammals and fish, and their demise has a domino effect on the whole food chain. Let's not forget here that we humans are at the top of this very food chain.
87 percent of all plant species require animal pollination, of which insects provide the lion's share.
About three quarters of all our crop types are also dependent on insect pollination.
Insects break down organic matter like fallen leaves, timber, corpses and animal feces. In the process, they recycle valuable nutrients. What happens when these services are no longer provided? When cows were introduced to Australia in the 19th century, there were no local insects who could deal with their dung. The result was that the pastures were drowning in cowpats that took years to decompose, until dung beetles from elsewhere in the world were deliberately introduced to solve the problem.
Insects that live in the soil play a major role in soil aeration.
Many insects are important pest control agents (though, admittedly, most pests are also insects.) The wasps we are familiar with here in Europe prey on crop pests, for example, and also play a role in plant pollination.
Insects can control unwanted or invasive plants.
The role of insects as food for humans is something rather new and exotic for us here in Europe, but if you look at the world as a whole, a staggering 80 percent of people regularly consume insects!

With insect numbers in decline everywhere, all of these vital services are threatened. Luckily, every single one of us can take action to help boost insect populations, not only where we live but also in the rest of the world.
If you don't know where to start, I suggest you watch this space - there will be a whole series of Precious Insects posts, starting with 5 simple things you can do for insects in winter.

Fun insect fact: A favorite dish of Hirohito, the former Emperor of Japan, was boiled wasps with rice.

Source: Dave Goulson, Silent Earth - Averting the Insect Apocalypse

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Precious insects - 5 simple things you can do for them in winter

7/1/2024

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We still have some time to go till spring, and insects are not much in evidence right now. But there is a lot we can do even during winter to make the world a more insect-friendly place. Here are a few simple but powerful things you can apply as of today.

Buy local, seasonal and preferably organic products. Organic farmers avoid pesticides and preserve the health of their soils, among other benefits for insects.
Eat less meat, particularly beef. Beef production uses a staggering 60% of the world's agricultural land and incredible amounts of pesticides. This could be freed up for nature, providing much-needed habitats for insects.
Don't waste food. We waste one third of all the food produced worldwide. Imagine how much more space there could be for nature if we could cut agricultural production by one third!
Remove or switch off any unnecessary lights in your garden/on your balcony. They disorient insects and make them easy prey.
Don't use flea treatments for your pet that contain neonicotinoids. These are extremely toxic to insects and end up in our soils and water when your dog jumps into a pond, for example.

Fun fact (even though you might also find this a bit scary): The weight of ants on our planet is similar to the total weight of all humans.

Source: Dave Goulson, Silent Earth - Averting the Insect Apocalypse

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Precious insects - 10+ simple things you can do to turn your garden into a haven for insects

Precious insects - what are all these creepy-crawlies actually good for?

Precious insects - 5 simple things you can do for them in winter

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Precious insects - 10+ simple things you can do to turn your garden into a haven for insects

Precious insects - what are all these creepy-crawlies actually good for?

Precious insects - 5 simple things you can do for them in winter

Illustrated Thoughts

Archives

Categories

New posts straight to your inbox?(About once a month, no spam.)

I would love to hear from you!

[email protected]

Amsterdam, Netherlands

New posts straight to your inbox?
(About once a month, no spam.)