Plummeting insect numbers

It worries me a great deal, as it should all of us. We seem to be hurtling towards a cliff edge environmentally, in all respects. I agree that we all need to play our part,*CardiffJaguar*. One of our DDs is a Green Party member and her little family really live as best they can by their principles - they don't have a car (though admittedly they use a car pool or hire one now and then for outings), they recycle and re-use everything, bought second hand for their baby (now two) and eat as plant-based and local as they can. Even so it's not easy. I am deeply ashamed of buying so much I don't really need, like clothes and books, though I am trying to rein that in as best I can. I'm trying to make the garden as wildlife friendly as possible and we make compost - but what individuals do is nowhere near enough in this throwaway consumer society. Hard not to feel despondent.

What I, and everyone else, want to know is: when are our governments going to wake up and put measures in place to halt the decline? What will it take?

Thank goodness for courageous and committed campaigners!

Day6 there is another thread about someone whose neighbour wants an oak tree chopped down because the 'leaves drop'.

Vegan diet is hugely important also as uses a lot less energy - crops and water - and will slow global warming. We need to eat organic
Unfortunately, Razzy it would not be possible to feed the world's population with organically produced vegan food.

I certainly think, though, that we need to be far less careless with our planet and its resources.

quizqueen our garden is a bit of a mess at the moment! I did try to grow wildflowers a couple of years ago but without success but certainly, the bees do seem to love any purple flowering plants and we seem to have plenty of those when in season.

Some wonderful person where I live in Beckenham Kent is planting random pieces of verge with flowers with the small sign ‘ save the bees’ , there is a little box at each , so people can leave either seeds, plants, or money so the work can be continued.

Gardeners can do a great deal by just growing bee friendly plants - loads of advice on the internet - instead of trying to establish wild flower areas which can be difficult to maintain and often end up being a disappointment.

Leave patches of nettles and don't worry about being too tidy. It all helps.

If you'd rather not have stinging nettles in your garden, grow Agastache 'Black Adder' instead. It resembles nettles and bees love it!!

I've bought seeds specifically to attract bees and butterflies to plant this year.
Should be interesting when they fly into my front room.

I heard a buzzing when I was parking the car today, when I looked in the back it was a queen wasp flying around . I did let it out rather than hit it with my handbag.

And I have two bites already and it's only February.

I shall resist the urge to whack them with my trusty electric tennis racket if they come in.
Bees and wasps are usually quite compliant if you wave your arms in the direction of the door though.

Nanna58 Ooooh, please tell me exactly where! I live close to Beckenham, on the Shirley/West Wickham border! I'd love to know where this border is!

Other posters have mentioned paving gardens and round 'ere, many front gardens are just that: paved or concrete. For cars. That is becoming more widespread and contributing to flooding in susceptible areas.
I hate seeing plastic grass too and there are a few front gardens locally which have installed it. Why?? No, don't answer!

Our garden is a mess at the moment because I've not been able to do much lately (recovering fracture). We back onto an area of woodland so the bottom of the garden has been turned into a woodland garden. DH made a narrow winding path through it using recycled bricks and I'm planting it up with mainly woodland or shade loving plants which attract wildlife. The pond is being re-dug (became leaky, overgrown and full of bindweed and bramble) and the small herb patch also contains blackcurrants and thornless blackberry. MIL isn't keen on it as it often looks uncontrolled and she likes things neat and structured, whereas we like a garden with a bit of mystery.
Even so, there are fewer insects around than there used to be and we don't get sparrows any more and haven't for years. We have bird feeders and blackbirds, nuthatches, chaffinches, robins, varieties of tits, wrens and thrushes visit, together with the larger ones and those darned parakeets!

Years ago Sarah Raven fronted a TV programme about planting for wildlife and I felt really excited by it. She tried to persuade a couple of councils to use wildlife-friendly plantings as a trial but years later, how successful has she been in converting councils to follow suit?

we still have regular visits from difernet types of birds due to the three feeding stations and bird baths we have in the garden.I encourage insects as much as possible by planting the types of flowers recommended for this purpose. I too leave a patch of nettles and sometime i grow just a couple of brassica plants for the butterflies to use and we have a budhlia tree which is just alive with bees and butterflies when the blossom is there. We must all do what we can to preserve every form of life for the future generations if it is possible to do so.

Good post, travelsafar - totally agree. It's the responsibility of all of us. And we can encourage our DC/DGC to do likewise.

NOW (12.39) on freeview 232 - the Environmental Audit committee is having discussions on planetary health, has been talking about insects

Plenty of bee activity in our garden over the last few days. You can hear them as soon as you walk out the back door.

The early flowering Prunus domestica is smothered in them, ditto snowdrops, hellebores and crocuses.

Wonderful to see it.

It is very frightening. Do you remember when a summer day out in the car resulted in hundreds of insects plastered against the windscreen? It doesn't happen now.

I expect gardeners and their pesticides have some part to play, along with more industrial users of chemicals.

The Guardian's article completely contradicts the Independent article where they say we should be eating insects to save the planet. I was under the impression that some of our supermarkets were going to trial edible insects.

www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/entomophagy-eat-insects-food-diet-save-planet-meat-cattle-deforestation-a8259991.html

Who is right?

Whilst working in my garden yesterday in the beautiful sunshine i found two ladybirds sunning themselves on my rose bushes. No bees or butterflies yet, plenty of ants and spiders crawling around though.