How to bring the magic of fireflies to your woodland garden

Capturing magic in your hands. A firefly lights up while it is being held.

Create the right habitat for attracting the firefly

Have you ever experienced the magic of a firefly, or better still, dozens of them lighting up the night sky?

If the answer is no, it’s time to get busy laying out the welcome mat for these intriguing little insects that can turn a summer night into pure theatre.

Like something out of a fantasy film, these warm glowing lights that emerge from the plants, grasses and trees in the garden for just a brief moment, capture our imaginations and, if you are like many of today’s gardeners, bring back memories of our childhoods when the woodlands, grasslands and even our own backyards were alive with the sparkling insects in desperate search of a mate.

It’s a shame that for so many of us, the experience is just a childhood memory.

That magical experience is still very much alive every summer in our backyard at the end of June.

And here’s why.

First, we live in an area where Fireflies are native to the area, but more importantly our garden is an invitation to them by actions we have not taken and steps we have taken to welcome them. There are about 2,000 different firefly species worldwide and, iin North America alone, there are close to 200 different fireflies. It’s time to bring some into our yards.

An impressive display of fireflies beautifully synchronized in displays of yellow-green flashes in the Appalachian mountains.

Let’s start with the actions we have taken to attract fireflies:

• Create a wood pile in the backyard

• plant native trees especially pine trees, grasses, sedges and plants to encourage them into your yard

• Provide them with water in the garden, preferably a small fishless pond.

• Turn bright lights off. You don’t need them. If you must, use lights on motion detectors.

• We have allowed a large open compost of the finest woodland soil to develop untouched over many years. The larvae of fireflies prefer moist, woodland soil with plenty of organic material.

Steps we have not taken:

• We have not picked up leaves in the fall, instead allowing them to fall naturally into our woodland where many of them gather around plants during the cold winter months providing safe, warm areas for insects

• Refrain from cutting the grass on a weekly schedule in spring into early summer allowing it to grow longer than usual.

• Choose not to use any broad spectrum pesticides in the garden and especially on the grass

A firefly grasps on to a blade of grass waiting for dark to put on its incredible light show.

What so many woodland gardeners may not realize is that our gardens are ideal habitat for fireflies, and like so many other insects, birds and butterflies, these unique insects are in real need of good habitat to keep their numbers up. Our gardens can be an important provider of that habitat if we are careful to provide the right conditions.

The firefly website is packed with information as well as guides and resources to help you develop habitat for these unique insects.

The Firefly Conservation & Research group besides being a fount of information for gardeners looking to create habitat for these insects, is a nonprofit organization founded in 2009 by a firefly researcher in Texas by the name of Ben Pfeiffer.

When Ben, a Texas State University biology major, beekeeper and certified naturalist with Texas Parks and Wildlife, noticed a decline in fireflies, he stepped in to help. He created the website with two missions in mind: One, to educate the public on threats to fireflies; and two, provide a public resource to help gardeners and landowners take the necessary steps to help fireflies.

“It was maybe 2008 when I noticed the fireflies in South Texas were disappearing,” Ben says. “There weren’t as many as I remembered when I was a kid. And then I heard a report on firefly decline on NPR Radio that confirmed it,” he states on his website.

So why should we help fireflies?

Well, for selfish reasons of course. How else can we turn our gardens into magical places where the show goes on for days (make that evenings) even weeks. Oh, and when the show is closed for the season, the larvae of the parent insects spend their time helping us gardeners by eating the snails, slugs and various other insects that call our garden home.

Can we ask for a better guest in our gardens?

More importantly, the habitats of fireflies, like so many of our native insects and pollinators are quickly disappearing. Researchers blame this disappearance on two main factors: over development and light pollution.

Firefly larvae prefer to live in the rotting, damp wood and forest litter around ponds, streams and generally wet areas.
Ben explains in the firefly Conservation & Research website that: “Their environment of choice is warm, humid and near standing water of some kind – ponds, streams and rivers, or even shallow depressions that retain water….”

It doesn’t take much to realize that these type of areas are quickly disappearing in nature and certainly in many backyards where gardeners are too concerned about creating the “tidy” garden and any sign of standing water removed or saturated with insecticide.

Scientists also point to increasing light pollution as a source for the decline in fireflies. The light caused by humans is believed to interrupt firefly flash patterns, critical to their communication and mating patterns.

“Where fireflies once had uninterrupted forests and fields to live and mate, homes with landscaped lawns and lots of exterior lights are taking over. The reduction of habitat and the increase in lighting at night may all be contributing to make fireflies more rare,” the firefly Conservation & Research site states.

Larval habitat for fireflies is critical

Creating habitat for the larval stage is critical to attracting them to your woodland garden.

More specifically, “Fireflies spend up to 95 per cent of their lives in larval stages. They live in soil/mud/leaf litter and spend from 1-2 years growing until finally pupating to become adults. This entire time they are eating anything they can find,” the Firefly Conservation and Research website states.

If that’s not enough to convince you to do all you can to lay out the welcome mat, the adults that only live 2-4 weeks, put on a fireworks show for your enjoyment before laying eggs in the moist, organic soil of your woodland garden.

Fireflies fall under the winged beetles category (Coleoptera) and although they are best know for their bioluminescence used to attract mates, not all fireflies produce this light.

Depending on where you live, you may be blessed with an abundant of firefly species. If you are lucky enough to live in and around New England, you might be able to count up to 30 species.

According to the Firefly Conservation & Research website, fireflies can be classified “under five main subfamilies, with with the Photinus in the Lampyridinae subfamily being the the most common in North America. It measures about a half-inch long and produce a yellowish-green light.

The one you are likely to see in your backyard at night is the eastern firefly (Photinus pyralis). It sports a reddish head area with black and yellow striped wings.

In the United States in parts of the Appalachian mountains lives a firefly (Photinus carolinus) that performs an incredible display of beautifully synchronized displays of yellow-green flashes in May and June.

In conclusion

I urge every gardener to consider taking the necessary steps to provide habitat for the elusive firefly so that future generations can enjoy these magical insects not only in wild areas but in gardens around the world.

Take a few minutes to check out Ben’s informative website to get further information on how you can help the fireflies. You may also consider making a donation to his site and the work he is doing to help protect our magical summers for years to come. You can make a donation to firefly: Conservation and Research here.