Bug Hotels

You call it garden art, insects will call it home,,,Bug hotels will offer shelter and even food for beetles, bees, and spiders. Johanna Silver writing in Sunset Magazine.

The Kruckeberg Botanic Garden in Shoreline, Washington makes a convincing case for bug hotels.
“These bug hotels provide safe places for animals large and small to hide, rest or raise their young. Many bugs are beneficial to the garden; they help pollinate flowers, eat pest insects and break down organic matter into new soil.”

I also think of bug hotels as garden art.

The two-sided bug hotel at the botanic garden solves the problem of what to do with garden debris. Think bits of wood, pine cones, lumber scraps, moss, bark, sections of tree branches, broken bricks, favorite stones.

Start with a basic divided structure—of any size—and apportion in ways you find pleasing. Then begin to fill with gathered materials. It may be a work in progress as you generate garden detritus.

Call it quirky but then sometimes, we as earth-loving gardeners, are unconventional.

These bug hotels at the botanic garden are the most elaborate I’ve seen. You can also start small as in the bug hotels seen in Sunset’s 8 Stylish Bug Hotels. (Thumbnail above)

Your plants will thank you.

Addendum: After posting, I found an excellent article from the perspective of an entomologist with suggestions for construction and deployment of insect hotels.
Insect Hotels: A Refuge or A Fad?

Advice for cleaning of the bug hotels from @honeygirlgrows. She suggests using pipe cleaners with soap and water or water with 10% bleach. Set in the sun to dry. This is the procedure used with bee equipment.