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| Tree ferns, palms and native ginger near Buderim, Queensland |
It was almost a decade ago that the Home Bug Garden first moved from a vague ideal to the beginnings of a buggy reality. Since then it has grown from a quackgrass and dandelion wasteland to a reasonable model of, if not a subtropical paradise, then a sub-boreal meadow-woodland.
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| A backyard pond begins to take form. |
As the new garden added essential components such as a water source and structural diversity composed of herbaceous perennials, shrubs, and trees it also increased in diversity from a near wasteland to a moderately diverse invertebrate habitat (524 species that we have identified so far). Vertebrates also increasingly use the garden with the pond, adjacent birdbath and dense vegetative cover a welcome respite to many migrant birds that never paused before and a better foraging habitat for those tough natives that can survive the long Edmonton winters.
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| Structural diversity generates biological diversity |
At the height of summer the pond is barely visible to humans due to the surrounding vegetation, but the bugs, birds and small mammals (including what looked like a Water Shrew; or perhaps, or a vole that likes to swim) find it easily and often.
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| Home Bug Garden backyard in August 2013 |
I hope the Home Bug Garden will continue to grow and prosper, but the Fates have decided that whatever contribution I may make to invertebrate conservation in the future will be in a distant and far different human-dominated ecosystem. Since it is the same land from which I drifted 10 years ago; however, I am looking forward to the repatriation and chance to make life a little more interesting for bugs and bug-lovers alike.
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| Who knows what surprises my await in the new Home Bug Garden? |
