The review bus has ambled down the lane and I'm delighted I'm the next stop on the blog tour for Jean Vernon's latest book Attracting Garden Pollinators. It's great to have a volume which covers all kinds of insect pollinators — as well as bees — as the importance of many of them is often overlooked for our gardens.
In the opening chapters stuffed with fascinating insights we find: without wasps we wouldn't have any bees (they evolved from them); some bees nest in snail shells as well as thrushes liking to find them (the snails that is); and hoverflies are highly useful pollinators as well chomping away at those pesky aphids. Jean neatly shows how inter connected everything is and we interfere with just one element at our peril.
Findings reported by the Natural History Museum recently show there's been a shocking decline in the world's insect populations. Our extensive network of gardens is a wonderful opportunity we as individuals can help pollinators and other insects back from the brink of extinction.
Jean provides plenty of guidance on how this can be done and suggests a patchwork of key habitats that are important. Amongst the usual suspects, I was surprised to see bare soil has a role to play as it provides a nesting site for some wasps and bees plus a space for pupating moths. I've revised my plans to re-sow a bare patch of lawn as a result. I'm also pleased to find my relaxed way
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