HEDGEHOG & THE BEETLE:
As we all know, our beloved Hedgehogs’ future is under threat. But are you aware their main diet is Beetles, and that they too are also a declining species?
There are over 4000 species of Beetle and are under threat for the same reasons too… Pesticides, habitat loss, climate change!. We all need to act now!
Provide for insects, stop using garden chemicals, weed killers & baits, stop tidying gardens so much, provide a wild space, build insect habitats – and they are so easy to do too! Insects are the food chain for many wildlife species. Beetles are the main diet of a Hedgehog and here we discuss what you can do and a little about Beetles themselves.
Hedgehogs and Beetles are both the gardener’s friends, and very similar in several aspects. Beetles love to eat aphids and snails, they recycle debris into nutrients in your soil and are also great pollinators. Ground Beetles eat vine weevil grubs and water beetles eat mosquito larvae in ponds.
Beetles breed between Spring and Autumn, returning to where they were born, to lay their own eggs. They do not like the cold and go into a state of Diapause, similar to hibernation, and like the Hedgehogs, their metabolic rate drops and they use stored fat to survive the cold. They too require water to keep hydrated during these months. Their winter hideouts and for their larvae are in rotting logs, tree holes, leaf litter, hollow plant stems, under soil, logs and rocks.
Please save an area of your gardens to attract insects and pollinators. You could build a Beetle bucket home, a bug hotel or use an old dog crate to fill with leaves, dead hedge branches and twigs, stones, rotting logs, soil etc, all will attract Beetles and many other species. Plant around it to attract the Beetles as they love Fennel, Dandelions, GoldenRod, and Zinnias, white ones especially. Don’t plant mint, marigold, lavender or Chrysanth’s near as they dislike these plants immensely.
Dead wood stacks and compost heaps are also great homes to both Hedgehog and Beetle. Think about the food chains… you kill the aphids, you starve the beetle, beetle dies and you starve the Hedgehog. Think life, not death.
Click here or here for some more information on attracting beetles and other invertebrates to your garden
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