Avoid exterminating wasps! Despite their irritating nature, they're beneficial for your garden's health
The Unsung Heroes of the Garden: Wasps
Wasps are a common sight in gardens across the UK, often causing a stir with their sting. However, these often-maligned insects play a crucial role in maintaining the balance of nature and providing valuable benefits to our gardens.
With over 100,000 species of wasps described worldwide, the UK alone boasts a diverse wasp population of approximately 7,000 species. The majority of these wasps are harmless to humans, with around 70% of wasps not stinging at all.
Social wasps, such as yellowjackets and hornets, account for only around 1,200 species, and just 9 can be found in the UK. While social wasps can become bothersome at the end of the summer when they are searching for food and are more likely to disturb picnics, it's important to remember that they are efficient natural pest-controllers.
Wasps are hunters, usually of other insects and arthropods, including caterpillars, aphids, weevils, and hornworms. By reducing the damage these pests cause to garden plants, wasps help lower the need for chemical interventions.
In addition to their pest-control role, wasps are also pollinators. Adult wasps feed on nectar, unintentionally transferring pollen between flowers and contributing to pollination, albeit less efficiently than bees. Some parasitoid wasps specifically target hidden insect larvae by laying eggs inside or on them, with their offspring consuming these pests, further enhancing pest control.
Wasps also play a key role in decomposition. They feed on carrion, aiding garden nutrient cycling and cleanliness.
Gardens provide particularly good habitats for wasps, especially if there's lots of dead wood, exposed soil, flowers, water, and a healthy population of other insects. If you want to attract wasps and keep them away from humans, consider putting out a sugary treat a few metres away from dining areas.
The smallest wasp is the fairy fly, a parasitoid wasp that is less than 0.015 mm in size and lives for only a few days. Males die after mating with new queens from other nests, along with any remaining workers and the old queen. Mated young queens hibernate and establish a new nest the following spring.
In conclusion, wasps provide significant benefits in gardens by serving as natural pest controllers, pollinators, and decomposers. Encouraging wasps and their natural predators through pesticide reduction and providing diverse habitats promotes sustainable pest management and pollination services in gardens.
- Landscape and gardens, enriched by the presence of various flowers, benefit from wasps as they contribute to natural pest control by preying on caterpillars, aphids, weevils, and hornworms, thereby reducing the need for chemical interventions.
- Integrating a diverse ecosystem in gardens, with dead wood, exposed soil, flowers, water, and a thriving population of insects, can attract beneficial wasps, thus promoting sustainable pest management and pollination services.
- Beyond their pest-control role, wasps, like many plants and aspects of home-and-garden lifestyle, contribute to nutrient cycling and cleanliness in the garden by decomposing carrion and serving as less efficient pollinators through nectar feeding and parasitoid wasps' targeted approach towards hidden insect larvae.
