Planting and planning for diversity matters. Whether you are gardening on your windowsill, patio gardening, or lucky enough to have a big backyard or even paddocks!
Designing your gardening with a variety of crops in mind (this is called poly-cultural planting) is recommended i.e., not just one row of cabbage, one row of carrots: instead you can mix the veggies all up and don’t grow in rows! This brings an abundance of diversity into your growing space.
An assortment of winged and buggy visitors to your garden starts to create true resilience, as your space begins to act as a true ecosystem. Something we are all very much responsible for. If we consider working with nature, we can adopt the acceptance that we garden within an environment shared with loads of creatures. Celebrate and make the very most of them… it is a great attitude to embrace. And liberating too – you won’t be spending all your time being paranoid about pests, which means more fun time in the garden.
Trying to attract pollinators butterflies, bees, moths, good bugs, small birds, bats, is key as they are responsible for the fertility of our gardens. This increases our yield plus boosts the health of the plants.
How to create a party for pollinators :
If your garden has flowers, understories, flowering trees, laden with pollen, and nectar then the party will come! It’s like sending out virtual invitations to all the good eggs and your garden will be filled with wonderful insects & bugs well before they have time to hit the RSVP button! The party has already started. Fellow pollinators will turn up to set up shop and let all their mates know to follow them, whopping it up in your green oasis like there is no tomorrow if you set up the right environment for them.
Good Bugs:
An essential part of your garden’s full health picture is good bugs. The presence of lacewings, ladybirds, wasps really help with your vegetables fertility and yield.
Fertility and stability…
Good bugs support the health of your plants, the food you grow and flower garden. You want insects such as lacewings, ladybirds, hoverflies etc in your garden. Wasps who lay their eggs in aphids for example help with your garden’s health by destroying the unborn insects. They also protect our plants too. Do your research on what are good bugs and what are bad…like did you know that there actually are some good aphids?!
Lizards are marvellous to have in your garden as they eat a lot of slugs and bugs which devour your plants, so it’s important to think about what habitat they enjoy and go about creating a little home for them (hint: lizards really like rocks).
Frogs utterly love hanging out in gardens and are a terrific indicator that your garden is in really good shape health-wise. If you’re lucky enough to have them, think about the fact that they love water, and consider creating a frog bog for the, to splash about in. Also remember to have water around for birds, bees and other winged wonders. This is a magnet for them to keep coming back or just set up permanent residence.
We sometimes forget about where these pertinent pollinators and insects go to sleep at night, so it’s a top idea to make or purchase a little beneficial hotel. Providing a home for them means they will settle in for good.
Build a Backyard Food Bank for these beauties…
Providing all the food pollinators want will also keep them active in your yard. And go on to pollinate all of your plants. Diversity is key. So loads of flowers which contain delicious pollen. Do some hardcore research on what flowers grow when in your area and plant them! Ask fellow gardeners what works for them.
Who doesn’t love a garden with beautiful perfumed flowers popping around everywhere with a rainbow pallet of colours? Some ideas include Calendula, Lavender, Daises, Queen Anne’s Lace, Red Clover, Allysum, Buddleja, Dahlias, and natives such as Correas, Grevillea, Bottlebrush and so on.
Further Reading Recommendation: A great read on this topic is The Wilderness Garden by Jackie French.
Top Tip: By ensuring you use certified organic products like Munash Organics Rockdust, Munash Organics Revitalise and Munash Organics Renew you will not harm any beneficial insects and bugs in your garden…or any other living creatures for that matter!