Wildlife garden
Gardening without pesticides: tackling pests the natural way
Gardening without pesticides means using no products against insects, slugs, weeds or moss, and preventing problems with healthy plants in the right place and a garden full of natural enemies such as tits, ladybirds, hoverflies and hedgehogs.
What to do
- Choose plants that suit your soil, light and moisture: a plant in the right place is less prone to diseases and pests.
- Bring in natural enemies: nest boxes for tits, umbellifers such as wild carrot and yarrow for hoverflies, and a patch of nettles for ladybirds.
- Be patient with aphids: within a few weeks the ladybirds and hoverfly larvae arrive. If need be, spray with water.
- Collect slugs in the evening or after rain, lay down a plank as a hiding place to trap them, and don’t scatter pellets.
- Weed by hand or with a hoe, and let something grow between paving slabs instead of spraying.
- First find out what is wrong in the guide to diseases and pests, and only act if it is really needed.
Why it helps
- Pesticides kill not only the pest but also its enemies, and they end up in the soil, the water and the food of birds and hedgehogs.
- A garden without pesticides reaches a balance over time: there are still aphids, but also enough animals to eat them.
Which plants?
- Common nettle Urtica dioica herbaceous plant Native
- Yarrow Achillea millefolium herbaceous plant Native
- Wild carrot Daucus carota herbaceous plant Native
- Elder Sambucus nigra Shrub · flowers May–June Native
- Field maple Acer campestre Broadleaf tree · flowers May Native
- Brown knapweed Centaurea jacea perennial · flowers June–September Native
- Field scabious Knautia arvensis perennial · flowers June–September Native
- Wild marjoram Origanum vulgare herbaceous plant Native
When?
March–September.
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Take up the challenge
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Put out a water dish (June–August)
Put out a shallow dish of water with a stone in it, for birds, hedgehogs and insects. Refresh it every few days.
Did you know? A single ladybird larva eats hundreds of aphids in a few weeks.