Insect Hotels:
So many of our native bees and small insects are struggling with the availability of suitable habitat and non-toxic food supplies. Many of the hedgerows have disappeared in rural areas as have hedges and untended gardens in heavily densified urban areas.
Insect Hotels are beginning to appear in parks in our cities and can be interesting and attractive additions to our small home gardens as well.
My handy husband has just built one in the hope of attracting more of those desirable insects to our garden. In our research it seems that the most popular spaces are those drilled holes in logs but we are offering a variety of likely habitat for spiders, native and solitary bees, wasps and insects.
Our Australian friends laugh at what they consider folly as, in their gardens, they try to remove likely places that poisonous spiders and snakes may find shelter.
If you want to offer a small haven for insects even one log drilled with various sized holes may increase habitat for some varieties of solitary bees.
Residences offered - drilled bamboo and wood blocks, pine cones, moss, rough bark, twigs, clay pots and clay pieces.
A slotted entry for butterflies - inside is a wall of rough bark to make it easy for them to hold on to while they sleep.
More wood drilled in many different widths.
Pine cones, upside down clay pots and broken clay pieces.
Also a few empty spaces just as I am sure we will receive more suggestions of what to add to the collection.
The resident Anna's hummingbird has no fear of us and is very curious about what we are doing in the garden.
You can see the hummingbird at the top of the picture.
So many of our native bees and small insects are struggling with the availability of suitable habitat and non-toxic food supplies. Many of the hedgerows have disappeared in rural areas as have hedges and untended gardens in heavily densified urban areas.
Insect Hotels are beginning to appear in parks in our cities and can be interesting and attractive additions to our small home gardens as well.
My handy husband has just built one in the hope of attracting more of those desirable insects to our garden. In our research it seems that the most popular spaces are those drilled holes in logs but we are offering a variety of likely habitat for spiders, native and solitary bees, wasps and insects.
Our Australian friends laugh at what they consider folly as, in their gardens, they try to remove likely places that poisonous spiders and snakes may find shelter.
If you want to offer a small haven for insects even one log drilled with various sized holes may increase habitat for some varieties of solitary bees.
A slotted entry for butterflies - inside is a wall of rough bark to make it easy for them to hold on to while they sleep.
I aways wondered what to do with these pewter models of Dutch canal houses. The platform on which they are assembled has holes drilled to allow access to the open bottoms of the houses. I wonder what will rent these spaces.
More wood drilled in many different widths.
Pine cones, upside down clay pots and broken clay pieces.
Also a few empty spaces just as I am sure we will receive more suggestions of what to add to the collection.
The resident Anna's hummingbird has no fear of us and is very curious about what we are doing in the garden.
You can see the hummingbird at the top of the picture.
