Graham Porter’s gardening: Encouraging hoverflies into your garden
Sep 4 2010 by Our Correspondent, Huddersfield Daily Examiner
OVER recent years there have been a number of worrying reports about the populations of a wide range of wild creatures, from birds of prey and otters to garden birds and bees.
And there does not seem to be a lot of positive news because as one creature’s population shows a slight increase another one shows a dramatic decline.
At the same time, the populations of accidentally or purposely imported foreign creatures seems to be on the increase – Scarlet Lily Beetle, Crimson Longhorn Beetle, Vine Weevil to name but a few.
Should we all be asking why? I suspect that most of us have little knowledge of origins and life cycles of our own wild creatures, let alone the foreign imports and so, over the next few months I will be giving you a little insight into some of these creatures, both beneficial and detrimental to our gardens so that we can appreciate the contribution that they make to the balance of nature in the wild and in the domestic garden.
For the first in the series I am looking at hoverflies as one of our truly beneficial insects.
Often mistaken for a bee or a wasp because many species have the same colourful black and yellow striping on their abdomen.
Their flight pattern is the first indicator that they are not a wasp as they literally hover, rather like a Harrier Jump Jet, making sudden sideways movements in their search for nectar and pollen, both essential ingredients in their diet to provide the energy for flying and egg production for the females.
There are more than 250 identified species of hoverflies in Britain belonging to the Order of Diptera (the true flies) and the family of Syrphidae for the scientific amongst you, with more than 100 of these having predatory larvae that can consume huge numbers of aphids throughout the late spring and summer.
This is of course the true benefit for us gardeners, although the work of these very active creatures goes on, for the most part, without us seeing it.
The important things for gardeners is to ensure that the supplies of nectar and pollen are easily available to the hoverfly adults through the right choice of flowering plants and that we avoid the unnecessary and excessive use of insecticides where at all possible so that we do not kill the predatory larvae.
Because of the flying habit of hoverflies, the best flowers are the open, flat headed flowers that can act as an easy landing pad.
This means that plants with simple, single flowers in the daisy family, Asteraceae, the rose family, Rosaceae and the buttercup family, Ranunculaceae are among the best.
To find out more about hoverflies you can visit www.hoverfly.org.uk or www.uknature.co.uk . Michael Chinery’s two wonderful books, The Natural History of the Garden (ISBN 0-00-219606-9) and Garden Creepie Crawlies (ISBN 0-905483-44-8) are both worth looking out for in second-hand book shops or through the internet.
If you have a particular insect that you would like to share will the rest of Huddersfield, why not write to me at Graham’s Insight Into Insects, Features Office, Huddersfield Daily Examiner, PO Box A26, Queen Street South, Huddersfield, HD1 3DU.
