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Plants for Bugs

RHS research project monitoring insects in native and non-native garden border plants.

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Wintery finale to first year of Plants for Bugs

Posted by Helen Bostock Plantsforbugs on 18 Dec 2009 at 10:01 AM

Welcome to our new Plants for Bugs blog!

 

Plants for Bugs is a ground-breaking research project being run at Wisley Gardens. We've set out to investigate whether the origin of the plants we grow in gardens - be it British natives or introduced exotics - affects the sorts of insects that are attracted to a garden. To do this, thirty-six 3 x 3 metre beds were built across two plot sites in May 2009.

 

        

 

Since then lots has happened; over 70 species of plants have gone in, the signage went up at the visitor access plot in Howard's Field and the scientists have been very busy developing sampling techniques to monitor the invertebrates.

 

Here's what we've been doing this summer - http://mygarden.rhs.org.uk/blogs/jim_gardiner/archive/2009/06/03/plants-for-pleasure-and-plants-for-bugs-at-wisley.aspx

 

and autumn... http://mygarden.rhs.org.uk/blogs/jim_gardiner/archive/2009/09/30/plants-for-bugs-at-wisley-autumn-update.aspx

 

and, of course, winter is here and the plots are looking particularly lovely under their first dusting of snow...

        

 

You can read more about the aims of the project on our science pages - http://www.rhs.org.uk/plants4bugs

Comments

bogweevil said:

Are you going to see what birds fly in for a winter snack?

Boggy

on 22 Dec 2009 at 08:40 AM

Helen Bostock Plantsforbugs said:

It would be nice, Boggy, to record ALL wildlife but I think we will be snowed under (sorry!) with data on the invertebrates as it is.

Thankfully, the insects are themselves food for many other creatures - mammals, birds, etc. - so monitoring them should give us a good indication of how the plots compare when it comes to supporting biodiversity.

I suppose the other aspect is that we don't have a lot of berrying trees and shrubs on the plots to actually attract many birds so the data would be very sparse and probably not very meaningful.

on 22 Dec 2009 at 09:16 AM