 A garden's natural fertility relies on decay, and insects are among nature's best recyclers. Ants are great composters, while the grubs of many flies, wasps and beetles spend their lives returning dead material to the soil.
 Many wild creatures depend on insects for food, like the screaming swifts and pipistrelle bats that are the stars of the gardening summer.
Both feed on the wing, but it is the earth-bound insect larvae that provide the bulk of natural food in most gardens. It is no coincidence that caterpillars appear when bird nests are full of hungry hatchlings.
 All birds need protein, and a pair of blue tits may gather a thousand caterpillars in a single day, which explains why a garden rich in insects will be filled with birdsong.
Sadly, the reverse is also true, a garden without birdsong is usually a garden that is not rich in insects. |
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Remember when a drive in the country meant frequent stops to scrape squashed moths and beetles off the windscreen? That almost never happens now. No wonder so many bats and birds are in trouble. With fewer insects in the countryside, our gardens have become life-saving habitats for many insect species.
Insect conservation should go hand in hand with good gardening, so why not make a start by minimising your use of harmful pesticides? The structure of your garden will also make a difference. Fences, walls and hedges create the suntraps and shade that insects need, while curtains of climbers and bunches of twiggy shrubs provide safe over-wintering habitat.
 All animals ultimately depend on plants, and at the larval stage many of our garden insects feed only on native vegetation. Luckily there is still enough wild vacant land within most neighbourhoods to ensure that stinging nettles and all those other undesirable but essential invaders can be kept beyond the garden boundary. This leaves us free to grow the plants we want and on which insects rely for year-round pollen and nectar. In fact, their survival depends on it. |
For a garden teeming with wildlife it's not enough to think about pretty creatures, you've got to think about insects too. Our most colourful flowers depend on them for pollination and seed production, but they are also important for other reasons. Predatory insects protect our plants from pests. Ground beetles are champion slug killers and ladybirds have a huge appetite for aphids.