Welcoming Bats to Your Garden: Roosts, Night Insects and Fragrant Evening Blooms

When dusk settles over your garden and the last blackbirds fall silent, a second shift begins. Silently, on leathery wings, the common pipistrelle circles above the bed, along the hedge, around the crown of the old apple tree. It is no bigger than your thumb, yet on a warm night it eats up to 2,000 midges. Welcome bats and you gain not some exotic guest, but one of the most effective and quietest forms of pest control a garden can offer.

The catch: in Germany all 25 native bat species are strictly protected, and many are not doing well. Old hollow trees vanish, lofts are sealed up during renovation, insects grow scarcer. Your garden can be one building block that makes a whole hunting ground liveable again. The lovely part: almost everything that helps bats gives you more garden, not less.

First understand what bats really need

A bat has three basic needs, and they are connected: food, a roost for resting and raising young, and safe flight routes between them. For our species food always means insects, never fruit. Native bats are strict insectivores and locate their prey by echolocation, with ultrasonic calls that bounce back off the bodies of the moths. To them, a garden full of nocturnal life sounds like a laid table.

The most common species around house and garden is the common pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pipistrellus). It is tiny, weighs barely more than a sugar cube and squeezes into finger-wide crevices. You do not need to tell the species apart. It is enough to set up the garden so that it works for many of them.

Set the table: night insects are the whole secret

Everything rises and falls with the insects. Without moths, caddisflies, non-biting midges and beetles, the best bat box stays empty. The most important contribution you can make is therefore not the box, but a garden in which something flies at night.

The lever is the diversity of plants and structures. A wildflower meadow, a brush pile, a dry stone wall, an unmown corner, a compost heap: each brings its own community of insects. Native shrubs and perennials are especially valuable, because the caterpillars of our moths feed on them. A butterfly bush on its own is not enough, since its leaves offer their caterpillars no food.

Rely on fragrant evening blooms

Here comes the loveliest trick of all, and it links the human nose to the bat's stomach. Many plants open their flowers only in the evening and then give off an intense, sweet scent. That scent is not meant for you but for night moths, above all the hawkmoths with their long proboscises. Where these moths come for nectar, the bats follow. So you plant the flower and harvest the hunters.

Place these evening bloomers deliberately along paths, by the terrace and beneath roosts, so the insect traffic gathers exactly there. A warm, sheltered corner strengthens the scent effect even more.

Common honeysuckle is the classic among the evening bloomers. It climbs up a fence, a pergola or into the hedge, opens its cream-white to pink corolla tubes in the afternoon and releases a beguiling scent from dusk onward. That is exactly the hour when the night moths set off, and exactly when the bats hunt. A second, often underrated candidate is the evening primrose, which unfurls its yellow flowers visibly within minutes.

More rewarding evening bloomers for bed and container: flowering tobacco (Nicotiana), sweet rocket (Hesperis matronalis), soapwort and the annual stock. Set them in groups, not singly, because a carpet of scent carries farther than a solitary plant.

Hang up a bat box

By day, bats rest in narrow, warm crevices. In the past these were tree hollows, cracks in bark and gaps behind shutters. Because ever less of that remains, a bat box steps in. It differs clearly from a bird nest box: no round entry hole, but a slim entrance slit on the underside, through which the animals crawl in from below. The back wall is roughened on the inside so the claws can grip.

Ideally buy a box made of woodcrete. The material lasts for decades, insulates well against temperature swings and is readily accepted by the animals. Plain wooden boxes work too, but weather faster. More important than the model is mounting it correctly.

1. Choose a high, open spot

   Hang the box at least 4 to 5 metres up on a house wall or tree trunk. The approach must be clear, with no branches or wire directly in front.

2. Face it south to south-east

   Bats love warmth. A sunny wall that heats up quickly in the morning is ideal. Avoid the cold north side.

3. Shelter it from wind and weather

   The entrance points downward and should not face the prevailing wind. Under a roof overhang the box stays dry.

4. Put up several boxes

   Offer two or three boxes in different orientations. That way the animals can move as the weather changes, just as in natural roosts.

5. Wait patiently

   A new box is often not occupied until the second or third year. Hang it up in late winter, so it is ready when the search for roosts begins in spring.

Switch off the light

Hardly anything harms bats as much as our lighting. Bright floodlights on the terrace, path and facade cut through the dark flight corridors along which light-shy species such as the brown long-eared bat feel their way. Lit exit openings can drive whole maternity colonies out of their roost, and artificial light gathers the night moths in the wrong places.

Offer water

Bats drink on the wing. They skim low over a stretch of water and scoop it up as they pass. For that they need an open, calm spot with no plant growth and no branches above, at least about a metre long, so the approach fits. A garden pond is ideal, but a larger, shallow water dish in the open helps too, especially on dry midsummer nights.

Think in combinations, not single measures

The strongest effect arises when food, roost, darkness and water come together. A box on a brightly lit, insect-poor facade stays empty. Start with whatever comes easiest to you: an unmown corner, three evening bloomers, the outdoor light off. The rest grows with the years. Bats are loyal guests: once a colony takes to your roost, it often returns for decades.

Häufige Fragen

How do I attract bats to my garden?

Through food. Bats follow the insects, so first make sure there are plenty of night moths and midges: plant native shrubs and perennials, let a corner go wild, skip the insecticides and add fragrant evening bloomers such as honeysuckle, evening primrose and flowering tobacco. On top of that, put up a bat box at least 4 metres high on a warm south wall, offer an open stretch of water and switch off the outdoor light at night. When these four things come together, the animals usually turn up of their own accord.

When and where is the best place to hang a bat box?

Hang the box up in late winter, so it is ready when the search for roosts begins in spring. The best spot is at least 4 to 5 metres up on a house wall or tree trunk, facing south to south-east, with a clear approach and no branches directly in front. The entrance slit points downward. Put up several boxes in slightly different orientations, so the animals can move as the weather changes. Be patient: it often takes two to three years until the first occupation.

Are bats in the garden dangerous or a nuisance?

No. Native bats are strict insectivores, do not fly at people and do not get tangled in hair, which is an old wives' tale. They are nocturnal and invisible by day, their droppings are almost odourless, dry and a good fertiliser. Only handle an animal with gloves if you find one on the ground, since very rarely bats can transmit rabies. Otherwise they are quiet, pleasant neighbours.

Which plants support bats best?

It is not the bat that eats the plant, but the night moths it attracts. Most valuable are the fragrant evening bloomers: honeysuckle, common evening primrose, flowering tobacco, sweet rocket and stock open in the evening and draw in the moths. Add to them native woody plants such as hawthorn, blackthorn, alder buckthorn, willow and ivy, on whose leaves the moth caterpillars feed. Ivy is especially valuable because it flowers late, in October. Plant the evening bloomers in groups near the terrace or beneath a roost.

Why is artificial light bad for bats?

Light destroys the darkness on which many species depend. Light-shy bats such as the brown long-eared bat avoid lit flight corridors, and illuminated roost openings can drive whole maternity colonies to move out. Artificial light also gathers the night moths in the wrong places. Switch off outdoor light at night wherever possible or use a motion sensor, choose warm-white bulbs of at most 2,700 kelvin and point lamps downward. Deliberately leave the hedge and garden boundary dark.