May 2, 2022 Sales WVF

Beautiful Bugs

Garden visitors

Insects may not always be pretty to look at, but they are valuable friends to the garden. They are essential for pollination of plants and crops, they provide much needed nutrients to birds, bats, and other predators and they are also key workers when it comes to aiding decomposition.

“Butterflies and moths, worms, snails and slugs, spiders, centipedes, beetles, bees and wasps - we can attract them and give them a home in a variety of ways, from simply planting insect-friendly plants and flowers, to building habitats for them to live in. Bee numbers have been declining at an alarming rate in recent years and it’s more important than ever for us to make sure our gardens are bee friendly. There are a variety of different types of bee that we’ll be familiar with seeing. Some of them will be social bees, like the honey-bee or bumblebee. These social bees live in large groups, usually in hives. The honey bee is perhaps the most social, and can live in colonies made up of tens of thousands of individual bees. Bumblebees tend to be in smaller group of around 100.”

- RSPB