Tips for a wildlife-friendly garden
All wildlife needs food, water and shelter, and most wildlife gardening is about trying to put this in place for garden creatures. The way you manage your garden can also be important, and this is where sustainability comes in. Wildlife friendly features can include any of the following:
Food and water
Attract birds to your garden by giving them one or more feeding options:
- Seed feeders are popular with blue-tits, for example. If you are putting one up for the first time you may need to wait a few days, or even a couple of weeks, before the birds become aware of it and start to use it.
- Nut feeders hold peanuts and should have a wire mesh that stops birds getting at whole peanuts, as this can choke chicks at breeding time.
- Suet is especially valuable in winter as a source of energy.
- You can also feed scraps, but be careful to put them where birds are safe from cats.
Water is also important to wildlife, as a drink and as a habitat:
- Bird baths are used by birds all year round. They help keep their feathers in good condition, aiding insulation in cold weather.
- Ponds of any size bring water and a new habitat to the garden. It is important to make sure there is one shallowly sloping edge, allowing creatures to drink or bathe safely, and ensuring that young frogs can get out easily. You need one deep section near the middle, about 40 cm deep.
- A boggy area can be a good addition or an alternative to a pond. You will need some liner underneath the soil, to hold in moisture. You can then plant with moisture-loving plants.
Plants and planting
Plants are a vital ingredient of the wildlife garden, particularly if they can be used for shelter, nectar or pollen. Here are some of the key plant elements:
- Trees provide lots of shelter for wildlife as well as nectar, fruit or nuts.
- Climbers, hedges and other vertical planting also give shelter, for example to nesting birds, and if allowed to flower they can also be a source of nectar, berries or nuts later in the year.
- Flowers for every season. It is possible to plant your garden so that there is a plant in flower almost the whole year through. This means that in warmer winters, any bumblebees and butterflies that emerge will have something to feed off.
- Autumn and winter fruit and berries. Autumn is a crucial time for wildlife as the weather turns, and birds and small mammals will appreciate the harvest of food.
- Longer lawns. You may want to keep your lawn mown, but if you cut all of it an inch or even two longer then this will help hold in the moisture. Or if you can set aside a part of the lawn that is allowed to grow a lot longer, this will give added shelter to many small creatures. Grass seed is also popular with some bird species – for example sparrows.
- Wildflower meadow. If you really like the idea of a longer lawn and want to see more colour in there, consider adding a few plug plants to your lawn. Be aware they may only last one season, though.
- Containers of all shapes and sizes can be used for plants – even quite big ones. So if you have a patio garden or a balcony, this need not stop you from following many of these hints and tips – just adapt them for containers.
Habitat and shelter
Aside from planting to provide shelter for wildlife, you can also add other features to your garden:
- Log pile. Pile up some sticks and twigs, or if you have larger fallen branches use them. Insects shelter in wood and some grubs even eat it. Frogs and toads will also welcome this shelter.
- Rockery or stone wall. Both of these provide nooks and crannies for various creepy crawlies like spiders, millipedes, woodlice and beetles. You don’t need to do anything elaborate and you can use rubble or left over bricks.
- Bug house. You could go for a large, all-in-one structure that combines lots of smaller bits of shelter, or you can have a lot of separate ones all around the garden. Good options are short bits of cane tied together and hung from a tree, or rolled up corrugated cardboard in a plastic bottle (with its top cut off), or blocks of wood with holes of different sizes drilled into them.
- Bird nest house. You can make your own or buy one. It needs to be sited at least 2 metres high, and should not be in direct sun.
- Bat house. Bats roost in different places in summer and winter and your bat house is most likely to be used in summer.
Sustain and enjoy
There are many ways to garden more sustainably:
- Make your own compost. Composting your garden and fresh kitchen waste does two jobs. It gives you lovely compost to use on your garden, and it provides another source of shelter for wildlife.
- Go peat-free. It is easy to garden peat-free these days, as there are many substitutes on the market. Peat bogs have taken thousands of years to form and are vital places for wildlife, as well as acting as carbon sinks.
- Install a water butt. This is a good way to save water for dry spells, and can also be used to top-up the pond if it gets dry.
- Avoid chemicals in your garden. Often, chemicals aimed at insect pests will also harm other ‘friendly’ insects that may be pollinators, or that eat pest larvae.
- Keep your front garden green. Even if you need to use it as a driveway, think about how to keep as many plants as possible. This will keep streets leafy and help prevent run-off and localised flooding.
Finally, don’t forget to enjoy your garden:
- Join a club. Gardening clubs are a good way to meet people and to get lots of advice.
- Relax, unwind, sit back and observe what is going on in your garden. It’s a marvellous way to learn about wildlife.
You can get more detail by going to the Wildlife Wonders section of the website. Why not see how many wildlife-friendly features you have in your garden – when you are in My Page, click on them to add them to the record of your garden features.
If you would like to read lots more advice about wildlife gardening, visit our sister website Wild About Gardens. There you can get ideas for more things to do, and read more about plants, habitats and wildlife in the garden.