GARDEN FOR LIFE

Almost all of us with gardens, who do not emulate the Queen of Hearts and do not think of them as manicured plots of regimented floral rows dressing to attention, know that our plots are brimming with natural wonders and ecological complexity. In an increasingly urban Britain, our gardens are one of the last refuges of many wild species – from bees to beetles, tits to thrushes, toads to tadpoles, and mice to moles.

This collective “garden resource” makes a huge contribution to biodiversity and nature conservation, especially when chemical herbicides and pesticides are proscribed – and the more gardeners examine the biological detail, the more fascinating it becomes as we see and begin to understand the roles of the myriad of species – the pollinators, the parasites, the fungi, the mosses and liverworts, the predators, the prey, the sex (everywhere!) and the sheer abundance of life of all sorts in only a few square metres.

Just take the extraordinarily complex and fascinating metamorphosis of insects – a topic that has occupied, and still can occupy, a lifetime’s study without exhaustion even though people have been investigating entomology for a very long time. The now familiar TV wildlife presenter Chris Packham is well known for saying, “! would rather spend ten minutes lying on my tummy watching a woodlouse than an hour watching a glossy television programme about lions”!

These are two species, common in gardens, studied by entomologist Professor Duncan in the 1800s: the mullein moth Shargacucullia verbasci (Linnaeus, 1758) whose yellow- and black-spotted caterpillars are so often seen on mullein plants (Verbascum thapsus) and the garden spider Araneus diadematus Clerck, 1758 whose webs are such marvels in the morning dew. (1882 illustrations from our library.)

Gardens are truly as fascinating as a tropical jungle and they are on our doorstop. They are such an important asset and they help to clean the air, regulate the local climate and act as a safe haven for a wealth of native species amongst those exotics that we plant – and the exotics also should not be despised as some conservationists do: they provide nectar, shelter and nesting sites, and are often perfectly acceptable foodplants for our autochthonous invertebrates, especially those garden varieties related to our native flora.

Here are some more common garden species – can you name them all?

Sadly, “garden grabbing”, the conversion of garden plots, allotments and urban greenspace to housing or other developments, has become a feature of urbanising Britain. Planners really should be much more circumspect about allowing the destruction of garden habitat because it is these green mini-jungles that provide the biological diversity now lacking in much of our intensively farmed rural landscape; they are in general decline. So please, let’s protect our gardens and do a bit more lying on our tummies – nature conservation, like charity, begins at home.

Betts Ecology wants to help anyone with a garden understand more about ecology and biodiversity. I have written a little book about wildlife gardening, entitled In Horto Feritas. You can download it for free from our web site’s library and publications page  www.bettsecology.co.uk/library-and-publications.   

 © Betts Ecology