I am longing to add some photos of our recent Scottish Highland and Island holiday, but we have had a particularly demanding spell since our return (and I could have done without a week on antibiotics for an ear infection!).
Anyway, I have had a small ladybird house (insect hotel seems too grand a term for this small edifice) in our garden for some years, but it has become old and shabby. Small creatures like the Ruby-tailed wasp seem to head for it, but I don't actually know whether it is being used as an insect 'nest' or 'home'.
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| Ladybird house ... as it started out |
When I read about
Amanda's purchases on on her blog,
The Quiet Walker, I decided the time had come to follow suit. Our (relatively) local Morrison supermarket had two insect houses on offer. They were made of wood and the roofs had been painted green. I decided to jazz them up a bit since I love messing about with paint in bright colours. I will let you know if I notice any new residents moving in!
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| My new insect houses (or are they hotels or beach huts?) |
Speaking of bright colours, I love Gazanias - also called
Treasure flowers. These South African plants may not be a native species, but the
Marmalade Hoverfly seems to make a beeline (sorry!) for them.
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| Caught on camera ... the hover of the hoverfly! |
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| Yes, you could be forgiven for thinking that I love a riot of bright colours! |
9 comments:
Hello Caroline, I love your beautiful flowers. And the insect homes are cute, what a great idea! I hope you are feeling better, have a happy new week ahead!
Glorious pictures, full of colour. Are they marmalade hoverflies? I'm sure there is such a thing.
The bee box I bought my folks off Amazon has been a bit of a bust so far.
I hope you get lots of interesting new residents in the insect houses!
Thank you all so much for your comments. Yes, I believe they are Marmalade Hoverflies (I inadvertently put 'tangerine' initially - but I meant marmalade).
I have never heard of insect houses before now. They are interesting to see. i could see spiders moving into them and helping themselves to the insects. Your flowers are really looking good. Your summer weather must be doing a good job as your flowers are looking so good.
Your garden looks so colourful - great photos of the hoverflies. I hope you attract lots of insects to the new bee homes - we have leaf cutter bees in ours :) Hope you feel better soon and look forward to seeing the holiday photos.
Thanks for the mention Caroline and your houses look lovely, last count we had over 20 holes filled on our three boxes, they have to be placed in the sunniest spot, morning sun the best I think, as the ones in the back garden have not been touched.We have some leaf cutter bees as well but so far have not found were they are nesting, under the Cherry tree I noticed yesterday Ladybird larvae over 20, but when I checked they are Harlequin larvae, still good to have as the cherry tree gets black fly on new leaves...
Hope you are all well again and have a lovely week..
Amanda xx
Love those insect houses and they way you jazzed them up ...they look perfect amongst all the flowers.
Great post Caroline, loads of lovely bright colours, super.
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