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Reintroduce Grasshoppers Crickets to my garden?

ZeroZero1ZeroZero1 Posts: 577
edited July 2018 in Wildlife gardening
In my childhood my ears were filled every summer with the sounds of crickets and grasshoppers, there were several in every yard of turf, where the long grass was.

Then, I confess, I largely ignored them, now I hear them no more and I miss them terribly.

I have a medium size garden and can leave a smallish patch under two apple trees so that the grass grows. 

Would it be possible to reintroduce and even cultivate these divine creatures?

Zero
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Posts

  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    I would have thought it would be a case of "built it and they will come". Leave the grass long - lots of cover.
  • ZeroZero1ZeroZero1 Posts: 577
    Unfortunately I don't think this will work here. I have already had my grass long and it's been a no show. Also I have had my ears peeled for their sounds for years and I have not heard any around these parts of Herts, which is reasonably built up. 
    I was hoping to buy some and put them in the garden
  • purplerallimpurplerallim Posts: 5,287
    In my last house you would get grasshoppers sunning themselves on the brick walls. Then the football field opposite was "tided up" around the edges removing scrubland and they disappeared overnight. I think the only way to reintroduce them would be for a registered naturalist to assess the area, as to do so yourself my be against the law.
  • PosyPosy Posts: 3,601
    We see hundreds - one side of the garden runs beside a field used for grazing. I think large areas of grassland are needed to attract them before they overspill into gardens.
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    And as we get older our hearing changes and we are less able to hear the high pitched crickets  :/

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • ZeroZero1ZeroZero1 Posts: 577
    edited July 2018
    Oh I can hear them, and everything I do will be legal. Posy you may be right
  • DyersEndDyersEnd Posts: 730
    I have loads too as in I have to mow very slowly to give them time to hop off. I can't hear them any more though since I reached the age of 27  :(
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    I get a few grasshoppers green ones and brown ones.
    Another benefit if being an untidy gardener? :)
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    I get lots of little green grasshopper/cricket type insects, luminous green, very small. I don't think they are the singing type, but they are plentiful. Tiny garden, I have no grass, no long grass anywhere near.
  • pottiepampottiepam Posts: 203
    Dove is right. I thought my hearing was perfect but can't hear crickets any more when my grandchildren can. 
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