Wildlife gardening
According to the Wildlife Trust, there are approximately 16 million gardens in the UK, making up a huge living landscape…
With the erosion of so many natural habitats in the UK countryside, gardens are a really important resource for a wide variety of wildlife, such as bats, birds, bees and even hedgehogs.
All gardens, as long as they contain some greenery, are good for wildlife, but there is no doubt that some are better than others. Plenty of plants beats tarmac every day of the week! If you want to make sure that your garden supports the widest range of creatures possible, then there are a few different areas to think about:
· Adding a water feature
· Planting for pollinators, such as bees, butterflies and other pollinators
· Making safe habitats at different heights for creatures such as birds or hedgehogs
· Minimising / totally reducing any pesticide use
· Creating a self-sustaining biodiverse area
Adding a water feature
One of the best things you can do for wildlife is to introduce water into your garden, even if it is just a tiny pond in a pot or bubbling water feature.
A pond will provide important drinking water for birds and other wildlife and will provide habitats for frogs, toads and newts as well as a whole host of mini beasts and water snails.
When creating a wildlife pond, make sure that it has gently sloping edges to allow easy access for bigger creatures to get in and out (even animals such as hedgehogs can use ponds for drinking, but need to be able to walk up and down to the water freely). If you don’t have the space for a pond then a bird bath is a great alternative.
A few stones and pebbles around the water margins provides resting places for bees to stop and drink.
If possible, fill the pond with rainwater, rather than tap water, which is high in chlorine and can be damaging to wildlife. If rainwater isn’t possible, however, filling with tap water and then waiting for 48 hours before adding wildlife (plants or creatures) will allow most of the chlorine to evaporate.
Finally, a true wildlife pond does better without ornamental fish. Fish will eat smaller pond life, and their waste increases water nutrient levels. So, for the most biodiverse and wildlife friendly pond, leave out the fish, and wait for the pond to fill up on its own with frogs, newts and a range of mini critters!
Planting for pollinators
Planting lots of brightly coloured flowers is a brilliant way to attract bees, butterflies and other important pollinators.
Pay attention to what times of year your plants flower, and aim to have something in bloom right from early Spring all the way through to late Autumn. This not only makes your garden look wonderful year-round, but also provides pollen for bees throughout the year.
Different coloured blooms attract different pollinators: bees are drawn to purple and blues, butterflies to bright colours such a pink, red, orange and yellow; moths to pale colours such as white, cream and light yellow, as these glow in the dusk once the sun has set. Incorporating a range of these will help to encourage different pollinators to your patch.
Avoid plants that have been cultivated with double or multi-petalled flowers – these have been designed to please human eyes but are much more difficult for insects as they often lack nectar, and pollinators aren’t able to easily get access inside.
See our guide to planting for bees for more information on pollinator-friendly gardening.
Making safe habitats
If you have the space, planting trees is a great way to encourage birds, as they provide shelter and feeding opportunities. For a small garden, try a multi-stemmed specimen, or maybe a small fruit tree; the bees will enjoy the nectar from the blossom, you can enjoy the fruit, and the birds will happily munch on any windfalls. Try hanging a few bird feeders in the branches to make your trees even more appealing and position them out of the reach of cats. Make sure you keep them topped up all year round as the birds will come to rely on you.
Climbers provide shelter and space for birds to nest, the flowers are rich in nectar, and they look gorgeous too! White single flowered rambling roses are my absolute favourite (birds love eating the hips in autumn), or try planting a honeysuckle or clematis. Ivy flowers are a very important late source of nectar for bees, and the berries are a great winter food source for a huge variety of birds.
You can buy or build purpose made homes for a huge range of creatures in your garden- from bird boxes to bug hotels, bat boxes to hedgehog hidey-holes. But you don’t need to have one of these purpose-built homes to provide habitats: piles of logs are great places for animals to make a home. You can simply stack up a pile of old logs, sited somewhere shady, and leave them to decay. It will soon become a home to many insects and bugs, which in turn will attract birds, frogs and maybe even hedgehogs.
Leaving a small gap under your fence will create a wildlife corridor, allowing hedgehogs, frogs and even newts to wander from garden to garden.
As well as leaving some areas of dead and decaying material, such as a log stack or a pile of leaves, it’s also a good idea just to not tidy the garden too much in general! Leave some fallen leaves on the ground over winter, have an area of long grass and wildflowers, don’t worry if a little patch of lawn becomes a bit boggy over the winter. With plenty of hiding spaces, a different range of plants (including weeds) and some damp and shady patches, you’ll encourage far more wildlife species to your garden than you will with a neatly manicured and always tidy space. Plus, it’s less work to do: win-win all round!
Minimising pesticide use
Think twice before reaching for a bug spray, slug pellet or weed killer. Though these are used for just one “pest” they tend to kill a huge selection more. Slug pellets, for example, will kill a slug – but can also kill a bird that eats the dead slug. Bug sprays kill all of the insects they come into contact with, including bees. (The correlation between the use of neonicotinoids – a pesticide that was commonly used in agriculture and horticulture – and the decline of bees has been widely reported and led to a neonicotinoid ban, but this is just one type of pesticide, there are many more still in use, which may yet prove to be just as harmful.) Even weedkiller can have a knock-on effect, drifting from the bindweed that was being targeted, onto the roses where the bees are feeding etc.
Creating a self-sustaining biodiverse environment
Rather than killing off any undesirables with chemicals, creating a garden with a naturally biodiverse ecosystem means that there are plenty of habitats for the predators that would feed on pests. So instead of spraying an aphid infestation, you can encourage the ladybirds that would feed on them. (In fact, just by having an aphid infestation, you are already encouraging ladybirds!)
Many of the other suggestions given in this article will also help to encourage predators that will naturally eat your pests: frogs living in a pond will eat slugs, as will hedgehogs in a leaf pile. Birds will feed on caterpillars, and so on. Yes, this method of managing a garden will never be pest free – you will always lose some of your plants to slugs and snails, and you’re bound to have a few caterpillars that feast on some precious leaves – but trying to work in harmony with nature, rather than fighting against it, will save you time, create a far more interesting and vivid landscape and – ultimately – help to save the planet! (Just maybe grow any hostas in pots, surrounded by copper tape!)
Finally, remember to take care when carrying out any work on your garden, there may be a frog or a snoozing hedgehog in the long grass you are about to cut, so have a bit of a poke around to allow any creatures to run away before you fire up the lawn mower.
