Rewilding Urban Spaces and Gardens
Invertebrates play a vital role in all ecosystems. Natasha explains how to turn your outdoor space into a bug haven.
Currently, the world is facing an ‘Insect Apocolypse’. According to a report for the Wildlife Trust, written by Prof Dave Goulson at the University of Sussex, we may have lost over 50% of insects since 1970. Chief Executive of Wiltshire Wildlife Trust said if we ‘restore the habitats they require to thrive’ and ‘take action now in our gardens, parks, farms and places of work’, then not all hope is lost!
Bug Hotel by Alicia Hayden.
Rewilding your garden is perhaps one of the easiest ways you can help local insect and other invertebrate populations, as well as having a bit of fun outside in nature at the same time. To re-wild your garden, you only need to step out in nature in your closest wild space to derive inspiration on how you de-urbanise your garden and make it a green space.
Firstly, you’ve got to make it look attractive to our bug friends. Just like if you were house-hunting, a fully-furnished home is far more appealing! Planting wildflowers and pollinator-friendly greenery are a great way to turn your garden from just another Victorian-style lawn, into a ‘fully-furnished’ bug haven. The best thing is, not only will it look pretty, but it will also attract many different species, from bees to butterflies, and even moths at night. You can buy wildflower seed packets from most garden centres like a sweet shop pick ‘n’ mix, or my particular favourite ‘seed bombs’. These are nuggets made with native seeds, clay and compost that you can pelt like a ball in an England Cricket competition in your garden and see what they grow!
Illustration by Alicia Hayden.
Another great way to increase the invertebrate biodiversity in your garden is to make like the Monopoly man and build your own (bug) hotel. ‘Bug hotels’ are manmade structures created to provide shelter for insects. They can come in all shapes and sizes, and the only limit is your imagination. If you have a good amount of space in your garden, you can make a large hotel by stacking wooden pallets and bricks together, and filling the gaps with leaves, pebbles, loose bark, straw, toilet tubes and old plant pots to create spaces for insects to hide. The Wildlife Trusts have a visual guide on their website to build this.
Some people may not have their own garden or if they do, it might not be a very big one. But that doesn’t mean you still can’t have your own bug hotel on your balcony or small green space. I recently made ‘Bug Bricks’. This involved filling core hole bricks with bits of straw, foliage, slate and bamboo shoots, and placing them around the front of the house to attract small insects to hide and take shelter in them. Within 24 hours, I had already spotted weevils and woodlice taking residence inside! They were super easy and fun to make and didn’t cost a penny, as I got the core hole bricks second hand. Alternatively, there are many pre-made bug hotels you can purchase online, some of which cater to specific species.
Bug Bricks, by Natasha Ballantyne.
It is more important than ever to create a space of nature, especially for insects and other invertebrates. You don’t even have to love bugs to do this, as small invertebrates are the foundations of every food chain on earth, and with insects making up 75 % of the worlds known 1.25 million animal species, without them, global ecosystems would collapse, including our favourite poster animals like birds and hedgehogs. So, be a wildlife warrior and have a go at becoming an interior designer for native insects this spring!
Thank you to Alicia Hayden for her beautiful illustrations. You can find more of her work at @aliciahaydenwildlife.
Natasha Ballantyne
My name is Natasha, or ‘Tash’. I’m an animal lover through and through, and I take special fasciation in UK wildlife, as well as native and exotic reptiles and invertebrates! I’m currently a veterinary nursing assistant and receptionist, but I also run an Instagram Blog ‘@the_biophiliac_blog’, so I like to think I get the privilege of experiencing wildlife, as well as our domesticated friends.