Tower Hamlets Homes has installed a new Insect Hotel beside O’Brien House on the Greenways Estate.
Veronica Suwara, Contracts Administrator with Tower Hamlets Homes, who organised the construction of the insect hotel, explains: “The wild area by O’Brien House is quiet and unlikely to be disturbed, it is also sheltered with trees and not too wet or too dry. The hotel was built entirely from recycled materials. We used old pallets found on our estates as the main structure. The gaps in the structure were filled with an assortment of things in order to create habitats for a wide variety of bugs: broken pots and crocks, some small branches, old drainage pipe, cardboard poster tubes, corrugated cardboard and plastic bottles, straw and hay, bricks with holes, waterproof plastic sheet, old carpet tiles, roofing felt or roof tiles, pine cones, stacked slate, bark and old leaves.”
Tower Hamlets Homes has already improved habitat for insects at O’Brien House this winter, particularly bees and butterflies, by creating one of 21 new annual wildflower meadows in the wild garden here. The insect hotel adds more habitat. Some insects, such as solitary bees, will benefit from both projects, feeding on the flowers and nesting in cavities in the insect hotel.
This is the second insect hotel created by Tower Hamlets Homes, following one built at Matilda House in 2013. It is very easy to build an insect hotel, by following the steps in this leaflet. So why not build one in your garden, school or estate? For other ways to help insects in your garden, see our Gardening for Bugs page. If you do build an insect hotel in Tower Hamlets, please let us know, as it will contribute to the Local Biodiversity Action Plan.
