Working the night shift

According to an article in the summer edition of BATS Magazine, the bat booth at this year’s White House Easter Egg Roll was flapping up some tough competition for the always popular bunnies. Bat Conservation International (BCI) and the Organization for Bat Conservation indicated they received thousands of visitors to their booth, which had four species of live bats on hand, during the annual event on the South Lawn that draws some 35,000 people.

Bats or bunnies? It may seem like an easy choice when it comes to the cute factor. Yet bats are increasingly getting attention these days from both conservationists and many home habitat gardeners. Bees and butterflies may get the spotlight, but these nighttime pollinators are just as important and double as pest managers. But loss of habitat and disease are wreaking havoc on bats. In the U.S. and Canada alone, White-nose Syndrome, a disease that attacks bats while they are hibernating and was first discovered America in 2006, has already wiped out 5.7 million bats in the continent, according to BCI. Scientists fear that by 2030, the population of the once common brown bat will be whittled down to just 1 percent of its pre-WNS population.

BAT HOUSE: THINKSTOCKPHOTOS.COM / BATS IN TREE: MORGUE FILE

As homeowners forge forward with their efforts to create more wildlife friendly spaces in their urban landscapes, many are expressing a desire to learn how to welcome bats into their gardens. With natural bat habitats declining, it’s becoming more important to include these essential creatures in our urban spaces.

The experts

When looking around for new bat houses, I came across Reg Regan of Lone Star Woodcraft, located in Garden Ridge, Texas. Regan’s company, which operates less than a mile away from the famous Bracken Cave in Austin, Texas, builds high-quality, certified bat houses and wildlife kits. If you’re not familiar with Bracken Cave, it is the largest colony of bats in the world, consisting of Mexican free-tailed bats, and quite a sight to behold. This special bat colony draws visitors in droves and drives demand for Regan’s specialty bat products. Regan shared with me some of his thoughts on bat conservation, bat care information and tips for local garden centers to boost their bat category sales.

Bat benefits

According to Regan, there are a few important reasons why the sight of bats in your area is a positive sign. Bats eat a lot of agricultural and backyard pests, including corn borer moths and mosquitoes. If you’re a corn farmer, a healthy local population of bats can save your crop. If mosquitoes are constantly ruining your backyard BBQ, you have good reason to encourage bats to join the party.

Bats are also very important pollinators. Regan points out that without bats, you wouldn’t get to enjoy those tasty margaritas. Why? Bats are the primary pollinator for Agave tequiliana, the species from which tequila is made. All of a sudden, bats seem really important!

Slow and steady

Bat gardening has been long in the making, yet slow to take off. In fact, if you flip back to the March 1995 issue of Garden Center magazine (then Garden Center Merchandising & Management) you’ll find an article from Todd Davis on bat gardening as a new horticulture hobby. I can’t say that I’ve seen a big bump in the trend since that time until only recently, when it’s become a more pressing environmental issue. I credit organizations like BCI for their renewed marketing push.

While a handful of independent garden centers have embraced the bat gardening category with gusto, most have yet to jump in. Most often, an IGC’s bat gardening category consists of two or three bat houses tucked into a back corner of their hard goods or birding sections. Most of the time it looks like they’ve been in stock for quite some time.

Small and big trends

BATS IN HOUSE: COURTESY LESLIE F. HALLECK / BATHOUSE AND BAT GUANO: THINKSTOCKPHOTOS.COM

When asked about bat-related trends and how IGCs could better market bat gardening, Regan explained that customer interest tends to fluctuate with the seasonal shifts. “When the bats return in the spring from their migratory or hibernation roosts, we see a spike in inquiries and sales,” he says.

Regan says you’ll also see a second spike of interest once folks start spending time outdoors and are bothered by mosquitoes. So you’ll need to get ahead of these two key seasonal spikes in interest.

Big concerns about small increases in diseases such as West Nile virus and Dengue fever are also driving new sales for Regan. For those living in warmer climates, where these diseases are a bigger risk, bat gardening is becoming much more popular as a health and wellness issue.

Bat attractants are typically no more than bat guano mixed with water and put in a spray bottle — and are pretty much bogus.

Bat Guano

Patience is key

New bat house owners are often disappointed when local bats don’t take up residence right away. A bit of patience and understanding is required when you’re getting started. Regan advises that bats are very critical of their habitat and it may take several seasons before they will move in permanently to a new bat house.

“They want to make sure the bat house will remain consistently warm, dry and dark,” he says.

Impatience or a lack of knowledge of the nesting process often causes many bat house owners to turn to bat attractant products. Bat attractants are typically no more than bat guano mixed with water and put in a spray bottle.

You’ll be instructed by the label to spray your bat house entry with the attractant, and bats will move right in. Regan warns that these claims are pretty much bogus.

“Although research has shown there may be a weak correlation to bat guano and attracting bats,” Regan says, “it is only when the bat guano comes from the colony you are trying to attract.”

Exterminate or relocate?

That knowledge could come in handy if your customer finds themselves with a bat nest in their attic or garage. Rather than have the nest exterminated, many homeowners are seeking ways to relocate their home invaders into a backyard bat house. While these types of relocations may not always be successful, it’s worth a try. By collecting some of the guano from the nest, you could potentially create a viable attractant to encourage your unwanted houseguests to successfully relocate.

Regan advises that if you have attic bats, put up a bat house at least two weeks before you try and evict the bats. Then work with an experienced pest control expert to facilitate the relocation process. Putting up a certified bat house near a water source is your best chance for overall success.

Top products

Regan cautions that the type of bat house you sell will make or break the experience for your customer. Many garden centers and mass retailers sell sub-par bat houses that he refers to as “conversational, not conservational; these bat houses simply will not work and the consumer becomes disinterested.”

His top tips include:

• Only sell bat houses certified by Bat Conservation International. There are 10 criteria associated with this certification, the size of the chambers being the most important.
• Only sell bat houses made out of the right materials and color for your region. Cedar is best.
• Do not sell bat houses made of plywood or that have netting on the inside, as bats can get trapped and die in the netting.
• Install bat houses at least 12 to 14 feet from the ground where they will receive at least 6 to 8 hours of direct sunlight per day.
• Make sure there is a water source near the bat house, such as a bird bath or small pond.

Night gardening

The next part of the bat gardening puzzle is the actual garden. We all know bats come out in the evening, so it’s only logical that they are nighttime feeders. That means gardeners will need to plant night-blooming plants that attract night-flying insects as a food source for local bats. Many gardeners don’t consider the overall benefits of planting night-blooming plants when planning their gardens. Plants that bloom in the evening and nighttime can bring your porch or patio to life with their fragrance. White flowering night bloomers will almost glow in the dark. If you’re looking to attract bats, then these night bloomers will serve a bigger purpose.

Likewise, many garden centers don’t consider that night-blooming plants need to be a prominent part of their bat gardening sales and marketing efforts. How many of you have a night gardening or bat gardening plant section in your nursery?

BAT: THINKSTOCKPHOTOS.COM / NIGHT-BLOOMING CEREUS, EVENING PRIMROSE, DATURA AND CONEFLOWER: DREAMSTIME.COM / MILKWEED AND NIGHTTIME PHOTO: MORGUE FILE

Night moves

Once you’ve embraced your bat gardening sales category, you’ll need to get the word out to your customers. Why not throw your local bats a party by hosting an evening night-gardening themed gathering? Bats, Blooms & Booze (I’ll throw you that one for free) is sure to get your customers’ and community’s attention. Needless to say, many night-blooming plants aren’t exactly strutting their stuff during your normal business hours.

Invite your local bat conservation group to set up a viewing and bat house demo. There’s nothing like live critters to draw traffic and many of your customers have probably never seen a real live bat up close.

Leslie (CPH) owns Halleck Horticultural, LLC, through which she provides horticultural consulting, digital content marketing, branding design, advertising and social media support for green industry companies. www.lesliehalleck.com