Greener gardening - make a bug hotel

This is a great time of year to use pruned plants, found and recycled materials to create a bug hotel which can support insects in your garden, giving them shelter from the weather and somewhere to spend the winter.

It really doesn’t have to be complicated or fancy – making a bug hotel can be as simple as piling up some old bricks, and pushing pruned stems, seedheads and twigs in the gaps in between.  Spiders will create their webs in the holes of the bricks, while ladybirds and other invertebrates will crawl into the hollow stems and seedheads.

Hanging baskets finished for the season?  Once you’ve emptied the plants and compost, line two metal baskets with chicken wire and fill them with all kinds of natural materials you might find in the garden or local woods: pine cones, seedheads, bits of broken pots, small twigs, small sections of bamboo cane.  When they’re filled tie them together to make a ball and hang them in a sunny, sheltered spot.