GARDENS:You don't own your patch, you just mind it for the creatures who depend upon it
THE LONGER I garden, the more I realise that that patch outside my door doesn't belong to me. No, it belongs to the creatures whose lives depend upon it: to the blue tits tearing the blossom apart on the cherry tree, to the blackbird that is nesting in the bay shrub across the wall, to the butterflies that flit from verbena to sedum and back again.
It belongs also, to be fair, to the snails that decapitate my plants, to the aphids that suck their sap, and to the leafhoppers that hide in the unsightly white gobs of cuckoo spit on the stems.
There are a thousand million beings living in the sixth of an acre that I call mine, and only a handful of humans dwelling in the house attached to it. Yet, with the illusion of omnipotence that my species labours under, I felt for years that I should be the one in control. There are (at least) two things wrong with this: firstly, I'm vastly outnumbered, as I've just mentioned; and secondly, the more one tries to control one's world, the harder it becomes to control it.
The fact is that every single one of those billion creatures has a mind of its own, and is going to do exactly what it wants to do, regardless of how I feel about it. I could be out there from dawn to dusk, spraying poisons, laying traps, and engaged in various other exercises designed to thwart the activities of the "baddies" (while hoping I wasn't harming the goodies), and I would never achieve anything other than an artificial lull in the hectic racket that is my garden (or rather, their garden).
But really, although I wouldn't mind offering refuge to a few less slugs, snails, aphids, vine weevils, scale insects, leaf miners, cutworms, wireworms and caterpillars (of the "wrong" kind), I'm on very good terms with the majority of the creatures going about their business outside this house. Not only do they present constant opportunities for entertainment, contemplation and feeling-at-one-with-the-world moments, but they also pretty much keep each other's numbers at acceptable levels.
The more different kinds of living beings a garden has, the more balanced it is, with the creatures higher up on the food chain consuming the lower down ones at a sustainable rate. If you interfere with this state of affairs by, for instance, hitting the aphids with a pesticidal spray, you also poison the insects that naturally feed on them.
Predators - including lacewings, ladybirds and hoverflies - take months to regenerate their populations, but their prey are up and running in days. And with no higher-ups to keep them under control, these mini-vegetarians are having the time of their lives eating your plants and reproducing with joyous abandon.
A garden with plenty of biodiversity is more likely to maintain its own health than a more manicured and controlled garden. Yes, there will be odd bouts of carnage and plagues of plant-eaters, especially if one has recently stopped using pesticides, but far fewer than where the gardener's first recourse is pesticides.
A lot of infestations can be stopped early on, with a bit of vigilance and a determined mean streak. Pioneering congregations of aphids on bud tips can be scrunched between thumb and forefinger, and gatherings of snails can be dispatched to meet their maker in whatever way you chose. Of course, aphid and snail-lovers may baulk at this approach, but even in wildlife-friendly gardens, some wildlife is, unfortunately, less friendly than others.
Birds, bees, butterflies and various other creatures will make their home in a garden if it looks like a good place to live. If you create a range of habitats, you'll meet their needs of food, shelter and water, while also making a more interesting garden for humans. A woodland area (which can be as tiny as a single tree underplanted with berrying shrubs and flowering perennials) offers food and cover for birds and insects. The former will eat some of the latter. Leave seedheads on plants over the winter as food for birds and shelter for insects. (Again, the former will eat some of the latter.)
Butterflies and bees are attracted to nectar-rich blooms: these are usually simple flowers, where the nectaries are easily reached. They look natural and are unencumbered by masses of extraneous petals. Among the best nectar plants are Echinops, Eupatorium, Verbena bonariensis, sedums, most herbs (let them flower, obviously), and, of course, the butterfly bush (Buddleja). Butterflies also appreciate a warm, wind-free spot where they may bask in the sun, such as a south-facing wall, or even a large rock or slab. They are cold-blooded creatures and must warm up to 30-35 degrees in order to fly.
The most important plant for butterflies is none of the above. It is, in fact, the nettle. Our most common butterflies - the small tortoiseshell, the peacock and the red admiral - lay their eggs only on nettles, which then provide food for their caterpillars. An equally misunderstood plant, the thistle, is the nursery for the painted lady. Holly and ivy are the egg places for one of our earliest butterflies, the little holly blue, which flits about in spring like an airborne, flickering, neon light.
Long grass offers a hiding place for some caterpillars, and a quiet location where they can rest in the chrysalis stage, before they emerge as beautifully winged adults. Indeed, a garden that is welcoming to wildlife is a little shaggy around the edges: unmown grass is also favoured by frogs, and leaf litter under shrubs and trees is home to all manner of wriggling and slithering things.
A log pile, or a mound of brush wood, becomes a thriving metropolis inhabited by woodlice, spiders, beetles, centipedes, worms and other invertebrates. Squeamish folk may be writhing at the idea of such a creepy-crawly citizenry inhabiting the undergrowth, but these beings have no interest in humans, and - more importantly - they are food for the more pretty (and to some, more acceptable) creatures of the garden, the birds.
Water, preferably a wildlife pond (but even a birdbath) is perhaps the most essential ingredient in the biodiverse garden. It can be a home to frogs, newts, dragonfly larvae, water boatmen, and many other water-lovers. It is a bathing facility for birds, as well as providing them, and small mammals, with a drinking place. So, if you do only one thing to make your garden more hospitable for our fellow earthlings, give them some water. Today. jpowers@irish-times.ie