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I’m using a plant to catch a leak in the ceiling. “No such thing as waste in a permaculture system,” right?

Insect Hotels

Over 30% of solitary bee species are wood nesters, some spending up to nine months of their lives as larvae incubating in forest deadfall. Ladybugs hibernate over winter in stacks of twigs, and other beneficial creatures – like wasps, lizards, moths, hedgehogs, beetles, and dragonflies – love to find little nooks and crannies to hide from predators and the elements, at any time of year.

An insect hotel is ideally placed in a sheltered location, but still in the sunlight. Ants sometimes eat bee larvae, so a solitary bee hotel is best placed off of the ground. Often, a wire mesh is placed on the outside to prevent bird predation. Ideally, the surrounding area should host flowering and insectary plants, to provide food for the guests!

These natural habitats are often missing from a domestic or overly-landscaped garden, and are absolutely vital to the health of your plants, local life web, and for the pollination of your garden. Designing for your native wildlife is crucial for a long-term healthy, productive, and sustainable space. Good, ecologically-minded design also minimises the amount of work you have to do: for example, I find that when I practice companion planting with insectary Apiaceae-family plants, I never have an aphid problem, because predatory beetles abound, and they eat problematic insects before they get established. Creating balanced ecosystems is a form of biological pest control.

An insect hotel is easily made from twigs, wood, tiles, pinecones, bricks, bark, grass, and other natural or salvaged materials. The form can differ, depending on what sort of creatures you would like to attract, and your aesthetics, but it should basically be designed from a “bug’s eye” view of the world: research what your local species are and what they require in terms of a habitat, and then create it for them in a manner that appeals to your eye.

These are also excellent projects for kids: they are fun and easy to make, interesting to observe, and help foster an early understanding of biology and ecology.

#DIY #bees #insects #entomology #biomimicry #permaculture #kids #art

Pre-made insect hotels: North America / Europe

Images:

B. Alter - Royal Bank of Canada New Wild Garden at the Chelsea Flower Show

sav-überlingen.de

Sissi de Kroon, flickr.com

Insect hotel in Hoofddorf, Holland. Bob Daamen, flickr.com

Cheshire Wildlife Trust, cheshirewildlifetrust.org.uk

Kevin Smith and Lisa Lee Benjamin. floragrubb.com

Inspiration Green Article on Insect Hotels

Everyone should garden

Sometimes when I’m talking to people about sustainability they’re like, “well, not everyone wants to garden” and it’s like, on the one hand I’m sure that’s true because of the diversity of the human experience means that someone out there would hate gardening no matter what.

But on the other hand…. what???? Why would someone NOT want to experience the miracle of life and then have the freshest ingredients possible to cook with??? All while releasing no green house gasses and being super cheap???

Humans have literally lived forever surrounded by plants with cultivating plants as a vital part of how we have lived for thousands of years and you’re telling me that we should stop doing that because some people don’t like to garden??

Gardening isn’t a hobby! It’s a way of life that we all need to be living if we can because our current way of life is unsustainable! Also everyone that can garden should so we can support the people who can’t. Gardening is what made us human and we can’t stop now.

A fully transparent solar cell that could make every window and screen a power source

Researchers at Michigan State University have created a fully transparent solar concentrator, which could turn any window or sheet of glass (like your smartphone’s screen) into a photovoltaic solar cell. Unlike other “transparent” solar cells that we’ve reported on in the past, this one really is transparent, as you can see in the photos throughout this story. According to Richard Lunt, who led the research, the team are confident that the transparent solar panels can be efficiently deployed in a wide range of settings, from “tall buildings with lots of windows or any kind of mobile device that demands high aesthetic quality like a phone or e-reader.”

Source

Matt Zeilinger, Solarpunk Girl (portrait of Krishna Jaya)

Plastic-eating mushrooms are the new superheroes in combating the growing waste crisis

A new report from Kew Gardens suggests that mushrooms can break down plastic in just weeks. Learn about this study and the many environmental benefits of fungi.

~ the pondering muse🌙

I know I’ve written about this a lot in the past month but this article has some new tidbits about mushroom’s beneficial effects on soil remediation. Apparently, not only can mushrooms break down plastics, radioactivity, generate electricity, and a plethora of other things. But it can also remove pesticides, dyes, remnants of explosives in the soil, and act as a stimulant for biofuel conversion! Pretty interesting stuff isn’t it?

The lavender held memories, the eucalyptus remembered all the tears, and the poppies were always there to see the years crawl by.

Three plants that are reminders of my childhood home in Northern California.

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I didn’t do the inktober this year, but I had fun with a tiny house :3