Insect-friendly garden

We have long known that we depend on insects and that they contribute in many ways to preserving biodiversity. With a few simple elements in your garden, on your balcony, or terrace, you can create a small oasis where these creatures feel at home. Here are some tips that insects will love. 

For a bountiful harvest, we need insects to pollinate the flowers. Bees are particularly helpful, but butterflies, beetles, hoverflies, flies, and wasps also contribute to pollination. Insects are also a vital part of the food chain, serving as a feast for birds, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals. In the soil, ants, springtails, and various types of beetles are among the essential organisms that break down organic matter and a clear example of this is your compost. 

Many insects can make your work easier by keeping garden pests in check: for example, the larvae of lacewings devour aphids, as do ladybirds and their voracious larvae. Earwigs eat aphid eggs and the caterpillars of webbing moths.

Can you imagine how bees, bumblebees, butterflies, and all the other insects would design their dream garden? From February to November, it would be full of colourful blooms, fruit and ornamental shrubs, wild plants, perennials, and ideally a vibrant wildflower meadow. By creating an insect-friendly variety of blooms in your garden, on your balcony, or terrace, you’ll be providing a vital habitat for these creatures. 

Native flowers are particularly attractive to butterflies, bees, bumblebees, beetles, and flies, as they are perfectly adapted to the needs of insects. Even a small blooming wildflower strip in your lawn or a specially planted flower bed can help. For boxes and pots, compact meadow seed mixes are available. 

Whatever plants you choose, pay attention to the blooms when purchasing. Densely double-flowered roses may look stunning, but they offer nothing for insects. They can only access nectar and pollen from simple, single-flowered varieties.

For an early bee pasture, a hazel bush (Corylus avellana) is ideal, reaching its floral peak in February. Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas), red dogwood (Cornus sanguinea), and spurge laurel (Daphne laureola) follow with their blooms in March and April. 

In early spring, bulb plants are particularly important, such as snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis), crocuses (Crocus vernus), daffodils (Narcissus), hyacinths (Hyacinthus orientalis), and wood anemones (Anemone nemorosa). Lungwort (Pulmonaria) is also highly popular with insects. 

The many flowering fruit trees, from apple to plum, set the table for insects. In the perennial garden, you can continue the floral display with knapweeds, such as the mountain bluet (Centaurea montana), various bellflowers (Campanula), columbine (Aquilegia), and viper’s bugloss (Echium vulgare). 

Insect-friendly summer bloomers include lavender (Lavandula), thyme, sage, and many other herbs. Additionally, there are anise hyssop (Agastache), rock rose (Helianthemum), and catmint (Nepeta x faassenii). 

The best time for dahlias (Dahlia), purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), sneezeweed (Helenium), globe thistles (Echinops bannaticus), goldenrod (Solidago), asters (Aster), stonecrop (Sedum telephium) whom all provide food for late-flying insects. 

You can also provide nesting and shelter opportunities in your garden. Insect hotels, butterfly boxes, or special bee hotels offer places where insects can lay eggs or overwinter. Some bee species nest in the ground, in old wood borings, or hollow plant stems. There are even species, such as mason bees, that nest in empty shells of Roman snails, grove snails, or banded snails, using them for overnight stays or as protection during bad weather. A natural garden design with wild, undisturbed corners, dry stone walls, and piles of stones create the perfect environment for a diverse insect world. 

With a pond, you can further expand the habitat for insects and other garden creatures. In this mini-ecosystem, dragonflies, water striders, and backswimmers are often found. Most insects live in shallow water and along the water’s edge. If space for a pond is limited, you can place a shallow water bowl with a few stones as landing spots to provide water for the insects. A mini pond can even fit on a balcony or terrace. 

If you'd like to know more about when to carry out specific gardening tasks, you can find the right times to do the important activities in our garden calendar.