Getting outside outdoors is vital for both your mental and physical wellbeing. With more and more distractions in modern life, it can be hard to find the time to explore and lose yourself in nature. Building a bug hotel in your garden is not only a quick and easy way to get some fresh air but is a fun activity you and your family can do together. Check out our step by step guide on making your very own bug hotel below, and watch the wildlife in your own garden come to life!
Making Your Bug Hotel
Bugs and insects like to crawl around in small places, so make sure you create a bug hotel with lots of gaps and crevices for them to crawl through. Here is a list of key materials that will help you build the ultimate bug hotel!
What You Will Need
- Wooden Logs
- Bricks
- Leaves
- Bark
- Twigs
- Wooden Pallets
- Cardboard
- Moss
- Straw
- Pinecones
- Decide how big you want to make your hotel. Are you wanting to create a home for insects or would you also like to attract larger wildlife like hedgehogs or toads? Depending on where you decide to build your hotel, you will also attract a different range of wildlife, so keep this in mind.
- Start off with a sturdy base, using bricks as a base, and then add wooden pallets on top, ensuring you leave gaps to allow wildlife to creep through.
- Fill in the gaps between the bricks and wooden pallets, creating tunnels, cosy beds and holes that wildlife can explore. Use natural materials such as bark, moss, straw, twigs and pinecones to do this.
- Finish off by adding a roof to keep your hotel dry, use old roof tiles or slabs of wood to do this.
- If you want to attract wildlife to your hotel then why not scatter wildflower seeds nearby to attract pollinators to the area!
Where to Create Your Bug Hotel
Try to locate your bug hotel close to an existing insect hotspot such as a hedge, a patch of nectar-rich flowers, or a pond. Make sure to keep your hotel away from vegetable patches! Before you know it your hotel will be fully occupied, a true haven for the tiny creatures who need it most.
If you don't have the time or recourses to build your own bug hotel, we sell a wide range of insect and wildlife houses across all of our stores, so pop in and have a look!
