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A stroll is a fantastic opportunity to see a variety of gardens of different styles and take home inspiration. Whether it's cottage gardens, Japanese gardens, perennials or a short-mown lawn, all gardeners want healthy plants free of pests, plenty of flowers where they belong and a bountiful harvest. Beneficial insects can provide you with excellent support and encouragement in this project. Read here how to settle the helpers in your realm.
Promote beneficial insects in the garden
Among beneficial insects there are very different animals that either eliminate pests (eat them or drive them away), improve the soil or ensure a rich harvest. Many such helpers can be found in near-natural gardens without you having to settle them separately. Some of them are well known, such as ladybugs, others you may not have seen in this context.
Beneficial insects from E - H
lizards
What you may not be aware of is that lizards are also beneficial creatures. They eat ants, spiders and cicadas, but also lice, grasshoppers and centipedes. In "tidy" gardens, they often find little living space. They absolutely need undisturbed, sunny places to warm up and like to hide in cracks in walls or in piles of wood. Heaps of leaves, branches, manure and lawn clippings serve as a place for the lizards to lay their eggs. Since lizards are very shy, they feel particularly at home in a secluded corner of the garden.
common toads
The grey-brown, warty animals are certainly not beauties, but they are a good “weapon” against slugs, worms, spiders, Colorado potato beetle larvae and other pests. They like dark, damp places and need a near-natural garden pond to spawn. Common toads can hibernate in burrows, in piles of leaves, in compost or in a sheltered corner of the garden.
bats
Bats are uneasy for some people, but are sometimes wrongly considered dangerous. All 25 species that occur in Germany are on the Red List of Endangered Species. Among other things, pesticides, a lack of resting places and a lack of winter quarters are responsible for this.
Deadwood piles, accessible attics or barns, and natural tree cavities make excellent bat roosts. Good alternatives are commercially available bat boxes or self-made bat hotels. Bats are very busy insecticides, moths in particular are on their menu. With nectar-rich plants that bloom at night, you can easily attract the favorite food of these beneficial insects. Natural ponds in which insect larvae can live and hedges made from native shrubs are also helpful.
birds of prey
Mice can do a lot of damage in gardens and ruin some crops. If they eat the roots of your vegetables, they will die. Birds of prey are the natural enemies of all kinds of rodents. You can make it easier for birds of prey to hunt in your yard if you provide them with perches. These poles should be sturdy and at least two meters high, with an equally sturdy crossbar.
Kestrel, Falco tinnunculus
Native songbirds
Increasing monocultures and soil sealing are making life difficult for native bird species. As a result, species that used to be common, such as sparrows and swallows, have now become rare in some regions. Natural gardens with native plants and bird baths offer numerous birds a suitable habitat again. Nesting boxes make it easier to settle. As a thank you, the birds devour kilos of pests such as caterpillars, butterflies, bugs and various lice every year.
Great tit, Parus major
Beneficial by I - M
Hedgehog
Don't underestimate the benefits of hedgehogs. They devour numerous pests without you even seeing the hedgehogs, because these beneficial insects are active at night. Snails are at the top of their diet, but they also eat insects, ringworms and larvae. Hedgehogs like to hide in compost or in piles of leaves and garden rubbish. A great danger for these cute little animals is the burning of garden waste, since the hedgehogs cannot escape from a burning heap so quickly.
hedgehog in the garden
ground beetle
Both ground beetles and their larvae are extremely helpful pest controllers. You should encourage these beneficial insects in your garden. The beetles fascinate with mostly shiny metallic elytra. Some species are tiny, others up to four centimeters in size. Their daily food requirement is about three times their body weight. In addition to isopods, Colorado potato beetles and wireworms, ground beetles also eat worms, grubs, snail eggs and small snails.
common rose chafer, Cetonia aurata
moles
Even if molehills on the lawn are rather annoying, the moles themselves can be described as beneficial insects. They loosen and aerate the soil. Incidentally, the ejected soil is very suitable for potted plants or flower beds. As a pure carnivore, it needs about 100 grams of insect larvae such as caterpillars and grubs, but moles also eat nematodes, earthworms, spiders, snails and even young mice. They depend on an intact ecosystem for this. If you find moles in your garden, your soil is healthy.
tip: You must not catch or kill moles, they are a protected species!
Beneficial from R - W
predatory insects
Depending on the species, predatory insects are used against aphids, whiteflies, mites or ants by driving the pests away or eating them, but also by laying their eggs in the larvae of the pests and thus stopping reproduction. Although these beneficial animals settle on their own, sometimes not in sufficient numbers. You can order predatory insects or their eggs or larvae online or in specialist shops.
Known species of predatory insects
- ladybug
- parasitic wasps
- lacewings
- gall midge larvae
- assassin bugs
Dusty wasp, Ichneumonidae
earthworms and other soil organisms
There are numerous species of earthworms that work closely with other soil creatures. Together they ensure a loose, humus-rich, well-mixed and aerated soil. In contrast to other species, compost worms live in the top layer of soil or in the foliage. Bred specifically for worm composting, they can help you compost your garden waste. By mulching you can promote the occurrence of earthworms.
butterflies and moths
Like wild bees, butterflies are primarily responsible for pollinating plants, but they also ensure biodiversity in domestic gardens. Like practically all insects, they serve as a food source for many native bird species. With butterfly-friendly plants such as summer lilac, you can encourage the settlement of the colorful beneficial insects. Although moths are less colorful than butterflies, they are also butterflies. They even outnumber them, because there are far more moths than butterflies.
wild bees and bumblebees
Wild bees and bumblebees are important for the pollination of plants. Unfortunately, they are one of the endangered livestock species. There are numerous different bee species, some of which specialize in certain food plants. Where the right plants don't grow, these bees can't survive. Therefore, a large variety of plants is important to promote the living conditions of beneficial insects. Fruit trees and shrubs, dog roses, sweet peas, marigolds, buttercups, cinquefoils and bluebells are just a few plants that encourage the presence of wild bees and ensure their nutrition.
By the way, bumblebees are among the so-called real bees. In contrast to honey bees, however, they can fly out at temperatures below 10 °C. Therefore, they are very important for the pollination of early bloomers. Bumblebees and some species of wild bees like to live in burrows or dead wood. About a quarter of the native species also feel comfortable in an insect hotel.
A pet friendly garden
A pet-friendly garden is the best way to prevent pests. In this way you not only settle your "pest fighters", you also ensure life, variety and variety in your garden. Not only children like to watch birds and crawling animals of all sizes, the hidden life in nature is also extremely interesting for many adults. For example, you can observe native songbirds at a bird bath and maybe even marvel at rare species.
A pet-friendly garden is designed in a versatile way and offers shelter to numerous different animals. He shouldn't be too tidy for that. Piles of leaves and brushwood, for example, are popular hiding places for hedgehogs and lizards. Dry stone walls and deadwood are important retreats and support a variety of beneficial insects. Insects feel particularly comfortable on native plants. This also includes wild or weeds, better known as weeds. Exotic plants are generally not food sources for bees and insects.
The insect hotel
By building an insect hotel, you can accommodate many different types of insects in your garden. Depending on how much space you have for it, there are a variety of options. You can buy insect hotels in different sizes and variations on the Internet and also in specialist shops. With a little craftsmanship, you can also build such a hotel yourself. With an insect hotel you not only support insects, but all animals that feed on them.
insect hotel
Do pesticides harm my beneficial insects?
You should avoid using pesticides if you want to encourage beneficial insects in your garden. Chemical agents can harm the beneficial animals as much as they fight vermin. Many mechanical means are also problematic. Catch belts and glue rings are very effective, but they make no difference between beneficial and vermin, so they also catch your little helpers. The only thing you can do without hesitation is collecting pests.
Encourage beneficial insects in winter
Not all beneficial insects can settle well in the home gardens without help and get through the winter well, some are dependent on your support. Keep this in mind when winterizing your property. Only cut back your perennials in the spring, leave dead wood and piles of leaves in the garden over the winter. This keeps the ground below largely frost-free, which helps earthworms and other soil organisms overwinter. In addition, many beneficial insects find their winter quarters there.
Hedgehogs are grateful for a shelter in winter. It is usually sufficient to leave a few piles of leaves and brushwood in a corner of the garden. Only very small hedgehogs may be fed a little in autumn. Hibernation indoors should be avoided as far as possible. It is better to provide suitable accommodation, such as a hedgehog house. You can buy it in hardware stores or garden centers, but you can also build it yourself with a little manual skill. Your children will no doubt be happy to help you with your work.
Hedgehog house in the garden
If you don't harvest all the fruit from your fruit trees and bushes, then birds will be able to find their own food well into the winter. In addition, you can possibly operate a winter feeding. However, this is only really important in severe winters.
Ivy only flowers relatively late in the year, in September and October, when hardly any other plants are flowering. Therefore, ivy is very important for all insects that feed on nectar, but also for birds that forage in spring. Because then the fruits are ripe. However, the berries are poisonous to humans. So only plant ivy where it can grow out of the reach of (small) children.