What I’ll Plant in My Garden to Attract Cute Critters 🦋
Rewilding my imaginary garden with cute bugs (all bugs really)
I don’t have a garden (yet) as I’m a writer working her way, globe trotting, and saving up that cashola to have my own little plot to call home. But boy when I do am I gonna have some plants that attract some cute bugs.
To me, all bugs serve a wonderful purpose in the ecosystem at large. I'm of the belief that spraying away one kind of bug with pesticides will usually kill most others and other wildlife like birds and even pets — so probably best to sit down, take a breath, and rethink your bug phobia.
Those six and eight-legged creatures aren’t just there for us to scream at — they’re there to help feed beautiful birds, or control smaller critter populations.
Also, instead of seeing the pests munching our home grown veggies as evil, maybe consider we’ve taken their land to plonk our homes onto and they’re just getting what they can from the land in return.
Not to mention, there’s usually a bigger, more beautiful bug that can help with your pest problem! For example, lady bugs typically eat aphids, small spiders, and mites – you can attract them with plants like fennel and dill.
Such is the wondrous world of plants and the ecosystem — a complicated network of interconnected mechanisms. From what my untrained eye can see, it’s all about balance and creating a system that sorts itself out – at least, that’s the plan for what my future dream garden will be like.
How to attract ladybirds
A fan favourite among people, is the ladybird. Her cute red-spotted coat and tiny legs are enough to imagine her in a top hat and with feminine eyelashes. They’re wonderful bugs that help with tiny “pests” that hover over our fruits or stick to our plants.
A Ladybird Eats:
➻ Aphids
➻ Fruit flies
➻ Mites
➻ Mealybugs
➻ Pollen
➻ Nectar
➻ Mildew
➻ Fungi
Plants to Attract Ladybirds:
➻ Yarrow
➻ Fennel
➻ Dill
➻ Angelica
➻ Calendula
➻ Marigold
➻ Sweet alyssum
My favourites on this list are probably yarrow, dill (love adding it to a fish dish), and sweet alyssum looks really cute too. I’d plant those around the place randomly to give my garden a more natural feeling – and bring in those sweet red-spotted bugs at the same time.
Plants that butterflies love
Who doesn’t love a butterfly? The way they fa-la-la-lutter by is like something out of those kids fairy books I used to peer into that depicted fairies on flowers. Butterflies are important pollinators (like bees) and they generally look stunning, so why not attract them! To keep the butterflies fluttering, you’ll need a mix of spring and autumn flowers that are in sunny spots as they love the heat — a bug after my own heart.
A Butterfly Eats:
➻ Flower nectar
➻ Rotting fruit
➻ Occasionally minerals in bird poop (nice)
Plants to Attract Butterflies:
➻ Verbena bonariensis
➻ Buddleia
➻ Perennial Wallflower
➻ Lavender
➻ Bluebell
➻ Rosemary
➻ Honeysuckle
➻ Sage
➻ Thyme
➻ Mint
A great way to help nature is composting, getting some rotting fruit out in the garden could help attract butterflies even if you have no pollen-rich plants. Or, you could try soaking a soft sponge with water and honey — leaving it out as an extra nibble.
But personally I’d love to plant the whole above list if I get a garden big enough, as these plants flower at different times of the year and I love all of them. You can get some more inspiration from this butterfly conservation list if you want a different aesthetic for your garden.
How to keep slugs at bay (without hurting them)
I’ve watched a family member spend hours picking up slugs and horrendously hurtling them like mini-rocket ships towards their neighbour’s garden plants – not a care in the world for how that likely killed an insect which probably had good reason to be there in the first place.
After witnessing that slug-swinging fiasco, I wanted to write this so I don’t get some knock-on karmic problems due to watching that person's inability to deal with a few slugs. Here we go…
Animals That Eat Slugs:
➻ Frogs
➻ Thrushes
➻ Robins
➻ Black birds
➻ Magpies
➻ Seagulls
➻ Ground & rove beetles
➻ Squirrels
➻ Moles
➻ Hedgehogs
➻ Mice
➻ Foxes
How to Attract Animals that Eat Slugs:
➻ Bird feeders
➻ Natural pond/ bird bath (rain water)
➻ Spots of long grass
➻ Undisturbed wild flowers
➻ Undisturbed hedges
➻ Woodpiles
➻ Composting fruits & veg
➻ Planting bushes like hawthorn and field maple
➻ Growing fruits
I hope that one day that family member reads this and sees that by simply leaving grass alone to grow a bit wild and long, that nature will do its thing without swinging a single slug.
How to help bumbling bees
We all know the ecological effect of the sweet, rotund bumble bee, with its fuzzy fur carrying pollen around to help plants spread and grow. But how can you make it easier for them to thrive in your garden?
Planting the flowers mentioned above will usually do the trick but, specifically bee-friendly plants include honeysuckle and foxgloves (although be aware that foxgloves can be poisonous to humans, cats, and dogs).
Flowers that Bees Love:
➻ Greater knapweed
➻ Bluebells
➻ Comfrey
➻ Clovers
You can also help the bees with trees, shrubs and even these natural bee houses off of Amazon [affiliate link] – which I’d put around the garden as they’re cute and offer some extra places for them and other bugs to set up base.
How to help dragonflies soar
Dragonflies are just beautiful in my opinion — I love the way they hover and have an almost magical quality to them. Might be those delicate wings that look so thin you can see through them — yet they can fly.
They’re useful for your garden too as they eat mosquitos and aphids, but they also are known to eat butterflies and bees. So make sure you’re helping those populations thrive as well by planting the stuff above.
Helping Dragonflies:
➻ Create a pond or get a giant pot full of rainwater (collected)
➻ Don’t use tap water as they’re sensitive to the chemicals in it
➻ Add a mix of plants to the water — water hornwort, water lilies, water mint, branched bur-reed or flag iris (gives them a mix of cover for laying eggs in and climbing out with)
➻ Don’t add fish as they might gobble up the eggs (both the fish will and the dragonfly nymphs will munch on the fish eggs too)
Another awesome thing about dragonflies is they’re usually an indicator that you’ve made a successful nature-friendly garden. They’re considered bioindicators for how healthy the water is — which in turn shows how healthy your garden is too.
My future garden plans
I’m mostly writing this down to remember it for myself, as I love the idea of rewilding a little plot and watching different natural creatures coming to your home as a result.
It would be like fostering an inviting little nook for animals and living things to enjoy and as a result, you get to peer into your flowers and see what cute thing decided to stop by. Obviously I’ve only written about the stereotypically cute ones, but I’m a fan of spiders and the considered not-pretty ones too.
Because they too are important for keeping a wild and beautiful garden — but I’ll write a piece dedicated to them next time as they deserve their own spotlight.
What plants would you have in your current or future garden?