Planting beds & pots

1 Conserving nectar feeders

For most people, dwelling with nature means becoming bird-watchers, feeding garden birds and providing nest boxes.  These citizen ornithologists do this on the assumption that food and nest sites are major factors limiting urban avian biodiversity. With respect to insect-watchers the planting of nectar-rich garden plants and the provision of  'bee tubes' are examples of the same conservation behaviour.  Both kinds of activity improve the well being of urbanised citizens who wish to gain the benefits of dwelling with nature .

Despite the massive marketing campaigns of bird seed merchants and bee tube manufacturers, little is known about the impact of gardening for birds and bees.  Just like the collection of information about garden birds depends on the tireless actions of volunteer householders so an army of unpaid insect watchers is required to develop the science of garden entomology.  As part of an effort to promote insect watching, the following section sets out a model for a project to answer the central question: if we provide the nectar, will the insects come?

2  Will the insects come?

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/17/bees-most-attracted-lavender-marjoram

The objective of the project is to encourage citizens to establish nectar points across the city of Cardiff with nectar-rich plants that will function as insect observatories.  The starting point for action is the pioneering work on garden pollination by scientists of the Cambridge University Zoology Department.

http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/content/83/4/369.full.pdf

This research was carried out in the late 1990s and involved 24 plant species native or naturalized in Britain.  They were grown in the Cambridge University Botanic Garden, and evaluated as potential resources for nectar-foraging bees, butterflies and hoverflies.  The research revealed differences between

plant species in the amount of nectar produced and the number of pollinator visits.  There were also differences between insect species and the plants they selected.  It is not a case of 'one size fits all'. By planting a wide range of flowers, always varieities 'close to nature' rather than highly modified hybrids, you will find that many different kinds of pollinator insects will bring life and movement to your garden.

http://www.foxleas.com/flower_shapes.htm

This is the kind of knowledge that enables gardeners to choose plant species for insect-friendly gardens. By providing forage for selected groups of insects, they help to sustain populations of pollinators and they may also add greatly to the biological interest of the garden.  The task of householders as citizen scientists is to adapt the Cambridge team’s methods to local requirements.  For example, the biodiversity of insect visitors may be recorded simply as ‘four-winged bees’ and ‘two-winged flies’.  Bumblebees may be categorized in the following colour groups,

browns;

black-bodied red tails;

one-, two-, or three-banded white-tails.