A half-eaten box of Roses, a McVitie’s selection box, a dozen Christmas cards and a smattering of Hotel Chocolat chocolates are evidence that Christmas hasn’t quite left our office (yet). So, today, when there are a handful of pink and orange cellophane wrappers littering my desk and I feel the need to walk off one too many strawberry dreams or orange creams (all the best ones are gone), I take a brisk walk in the garden.
Down at the bottom of Wisley garden, past the Pinetum and the bird hide, you’ll still find splashes of colour in a set of 18 neatly arranged plots. There’s a fence around them, but you’re welcome to trundle in and have a nosey. These 3m x 3m plots make up Plants for Bugs – a hypothesis-driven experiment investigating whether the geographic origin of garden plants significantly influences the invertebrate biodiversity. It’s a project that I provide hands-on assistance with (from weeding and watering to sampling and identification) and will undoubtedly keep referring to in later posts. So, whilst Plants for Bugs already received a brief mention last week, it really deserves a few more column inches here.
The project addresses an important question. What should we plant for wildlife? Research and experience means that we are all becoming increasingly aware of the important role our gardens play in attracting wildlife. The situation is exaggerated in towns and cities where in amongst the paving stones, car parks and private roads, our gardens can provide a welcome refuge for wildlife and together they can create a patchwork of wildlife-friendly stop-offs that link up the surrounding rural areas. But with 70% of the plants in an average UK garden being non-native, this leaves us with a bit of a dilemma. Do the 30% of native plants have a disproportionate influence on the wildlife they attract or do non-natives also provide a resource for biodiversity?
The project is set to run for three years. During this period, data on the abundance and diversity of invertebrates on the plots are collected using a suite of methods that enable RHS scientists obtain a more complete picture of the invertebrate wildlife on the ground, on the leaves and in the air above our plots.
Results will be of real interest to gardeners and scientists alike and for those of you who want to provide a garden that makes it easy for wildlife whilst also being easy on the eye, you’ll be pleased to know the plots all look really stunning too!
RHS Plants for Bugs plots in midsummer. Photograph courtesy of Helen Bostock (RHS)
Pingback: RHS KTP - practising and demonstrating excellence in horticultural science · The joys of pitfalls
As a very keen amateur gardener but who’s garden is in a small town centre I am always trying to encourage new wildlife into my plot such as ladybirds (To attack aphids) to help create a natural pest control. I do not however have much success so I will be following this project with interest.
Is this plot open to the public to view? And also with the plots being relatively close together how will you avoid cross insect contamination so to speak? What I mean by this is that one plant could surely attract a certain type of insect, and this will then populate the other plots leaving you uncertain which plant first attracted them in. I hope that makes sense!
Hi Richard,
Thanks for your interest in the plots and great to hear you are encouraging wildlife into your urban garden!
Regarding your question of public access to Plants for Bugs- yes, 18 of the plots are within Wisley garden (past the Pinetum) and anyone is welcome to wander among the plots to get some inspiration! We have another replicated set of 18 plots across the road, but these are not accessible to the public.
The plots are close together (only 1m guard rows separate them) but because the experiment runs for three years and regular sampling is carried out throughout this period, any significant treatment (i.e. native/ near-native/ exotic) effects will suggest that there is a consistent influence of plant origin on invertebrate biodiversity (despite the close proximity between plots/ treatments). If you are able to visit the experiment, you will notice we have drilled small holes in the timber edging around each plot edge to facilitate ‘bug traffic’ between plots. This helps ensure any significant results obtained will reflect the resource provided by the plots.
You make an excellent point about one plant potentally skewing the results and it is something the Plants for Bugs team planned for early on. We monitor invertebrates that visit the flowers, those that reside on the foliage and others that are largely restricted to the ground. It is unlikely that one plant will be equally ‘attractive’ to all of these invertebrates; however, we have used three slightly different sets of plant species to represent each treatment- not just one. This means that not every native plot, for example, has the same plant species in it, and reduces the likelihood that the results obtained are a consequence of one particular set of plant species.