Which Wildlife Should you Encourage to Live in Your Garden?

While creepy crawlies and strays probably aren’t high on the list of visitors to welcome to your garden, there are some animals that you should be encouraging to visit your back yard. We’ve teamed up with Dobies, retailers of flowering plants and garden products, to take a look at the wildlife that you should be more welcoming to and why.

Butterflies and bees

Butterflies and bees can be great additions to your back garden because they are natural pollinators meaning that they help spread your flowers around the garden and encourage growth. Bees are important pollinators of various plants and fruiting trees, and don’t forget also the ladybirds which feast on aphids.

Plant colourful flowers which will help to encourage these visitors to come into your garden. Bees are attracted to these plants, as they source their energy from sugar-filled nectar and the pollen provides bees with protein and fat.

If you want to bring bees and butterflies to your back yard, cluster flowers and plants together, as this encourages more bees to visit at once. Also, plant flowers that bloom at different times of year to encourage your flying friends to come to your garden.

Beneficial insects

Not all insects are a nuiscance. In fact, some of them can protect your plants from infestations of smaller creatures, so you definitely want to encourage these!

Aphids for example, are a problem for many gardeners. The small insects, also known as the greenfly and blackfly, suck saps from plants and excrete it as honeydew. This sticky substance then falls on the lower leaves of the plant which can be harmful to its growth. Photosynthesis becomes inhibited and the plant becomes deprived of energy. In extreme aphid attacks, the insects can fully smother the plant — causing it to become stunted and weak, which leads it to die. What you need on your side is the ladybird.

Ladybirds, or ladybird beetles, can protect you from these sorts of attacks. It is the larvae from these bugs that are predators of soft-bodied insects such as aphids. Encourage them to visit your garden by providing them with a water source such as filled saucers with pebbles and water which allows the insect to take a drink without falling in and drowning.

Damsel bugs are soft-bodies, winged insects that you want to have around. They feed on aphids, small caterpillars and other irritating small creatures — helping your crop thrive!

Keeping slugs and snails at bay

Slugs and snails are not welcome visitors in the least. They’ll quickly put paid to your fresh green shoots with their feasts so prevent these animals from taking over by encouraging hedgehogs into your green space.

Hedgehogs are a gardener’s best friend, as they feed on snail, slugs and other insects. To encourage hedgehogs into the garden, leave food out for them such as minced meat or tinned dog and cat food. Although people think that the creatures enjoy drinking milk, you shouldn’t leave this out for hedgehogs. It can upset their stomach and lead them to become dehydrated. You can also leave areas of the garden to grow wild with piles of leaves and overgrown grass to encourage hedgehogs to set up camp.

You can also encourage ducks and chickens to forage around the garden and consume the insects that they find. However, don’t expect your neat rows of fruit and vegetables to stay that way!