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How To Attract Wildlife To Your Garden by Matt James
We all know there is a climate crisis going on, but are you also aware of the ecological crisis too? We are experiencing a large decline in many of our species of insect, bird or mammal. Sometimes it may seem like these crises are too big to do anything about, but as gardeners, we are in a perfect position to help out and make a difference, simply by making our gardens a bit more wildlife-friendly. And as an added bonus, we’ll attract pollinators and predatory insects that help our vegetables and keep them free of pests.
So how do we get started? Any wildlife garden needs 4 basic elements – water, food, shelter and access.
Water For Wildlife
Water can be provided in many forms. If you have the space, then a pond is probably the single best thing you can do in your garden for wildlife (for more details on how to create a pond the right way see here and here. A vitally important thing to note is to have a sloping entrance to the pond so that animals that fall in can easily get back out. If you don’t have space for a pond, a small water feature like a birdbath or even a dish with some pebbles and water in are both great options. A small bog garden is also a great idea, especially if you have young kids and don’t want the risk of a pond.
Food For Wildlife
Putting up bird feeders with peanuts, sunflower seeds, nyjer seeds, mealworms and fat balls throughout the year will really help the birds. Just remember to ensure the containers are regularly cleaned to prevent disease spread and keep peanuts in a bird feeder where they can’t eat the whole nut in one go and choke on it. You could also consider putting out fruit too (especially when it’s going off). And then there are the natural food sources – plant trees and bushes with lots of fruits and berries (Ivy is particularly good).
Hedgehogs are particularly at risk right now so a great way to help is by putting food and water for hedgehogs in shallow bowls – use cat food (meat only, never fish) or specialist hedgehog food. Never give them milk though.
And for bees, butterflies and other pollinators, make sure there are lots of flowers. If at all possible, you should have a range of flowers (especially blue/purple ones) that flower throughout the seasons, not just in summer. In spring it’s a good idea to have lots of bulbs like snowdrops, crocuses, muscari, bluebells, primroses and tulips. In summer go for things like foxgloves, yarrow, salvia nemerosa, alliums, sunflowers, delphiniums, and herbs. In Autumn look for things like Asters and Sedum Spectabile and in Winter go for Ivy, heather (especially Erica Carnea) and Hellebores. There are many other options to consider too – Aubretia, Honesty, Vipers Bugloss, Bugsbane, Pulmonaria, Erysimum Bowles Mauve, Red Valerian, Campanula, Purple Loosestrife, and many more.
The key is to have something in flower for them in each of the four seasons. It’s also a good idea to plant some evening scented flowers such as evening primrose, honeysuckle and night-scented stock to attract moths too, which are good food for bats. A small wildflower meadow, or leaving a section of your lawn to grow long during the spring and summer would be an excellent way to help these pollinators.
It’s important to realise that when providing plants for butterflies and other pollinators, nectar is not their only need – butterflies, ladybirds and moths need plants to lay their eggs too. Each species likes something different so putting in plants such as nettles, blackberries, garlic mustard, nasturtiums, birdsfoot trefoil or even a holly tree, will provide breeding plants for many of these.
Wildlife Shelter
Shelter is another very important requirement. Trees and bushes should be your first option here as they provide great shelter for many animals. If you have the room (or want to replace a fence), a native hedge is particularly good with trees like hawthorn, blackthorn dog rose, elder, hazel, holly and so on. Spiky trees and bushes are particularly good as they keep larger predators like cats out, and extra brownie points if they produce berries or flowers for birds and insects too. If you don’t have room for a lot, maybe just have a small wild corner of the garden with a tree and a bush or two (such as blackberry bramble).
You can also put up birdhouses (never face them south as the heat will kill the chicks, a north/east direction is best) or bat houses (these should face south as the bats like the warmth). Most birdhouses can be a few metres off the ground, but swift boxes and bat boxes need to be up 4+ metres. Different birds also like different size holes or entrances, with most being happy with a hole around 3cm in diameter. Robins prefer open-fronted boxes instead.
Insects benefit from having bug hotels, bee hotels and piles of old wood or leaves. Bug hotels are built on the ground and contain a whole range of different nooks and crannies in them for the bugs to hide in. Bee hotels are kept up off the ground (ideally at least a metre up) and should face south/west. They also need to have tubes around 13-15 cm deep so check the length of these before purchasing them. A pile of old bits of wood, logs, sticks etc is a really beneficial thing for your garden, providing lots of habitat for insects as it breaks down, which in turn attracts birds, hedgehogs and so on. A pile of leaves will do the same but over a shorter period of time.
If you would like to attract reptiles and slow worms, a small piece of corrugated iron in a sunny position will give them a nice place to sunbathe. And some reptiles and amphibians, and even hedgehogs will use your compost pile as a place to hibernate or lay eggs. You can also buy or build hedgehog homes too, or build a hibernaculum for frogs.
Access For Wildlife
A final thing to consider is access – many people now block all access to their garden by using fencing or walls, but that also stops wildlife, particularly hedgehogs, from accessing your garden. An easy way to solve this is to cut a small hole in your fence, around 13cm square. This will give the hedgehogs access to your garden but is small enough to prevent pets from getting out. In fact, it’s the number one thing you can do to help hedgehogs.
6 Ways To Make a Wildlife-Friendly Garden in Autumn
As summer draws to a close and we start turning our minds to preparing the garden for next year, there are some great things we can do to help wildlife in our gardens over the winter. As we mentioned in the last post on wildlife gardening, it’s important to get the basics of food, water, shelter and access in place. But what about the specific things we can do this autumn?
1 – Plants
Autumn is the perfect time to plant trees, bushes and bulbs. Planting them in the Autumn gives trees and bushes time to get established ready for next year and they are particularly good habitat for wildlife, especially birds.
Planting bulbs now will provide lots of nectar in late winter and early spring when there is little else about for the early bees. Some really good bulbs to go for are snowdrops (which can flower as early as January), crocuses, primroses and muscari.
You may want to plant some winter heathers such as Erica Carnea which flowers from January to April, and Hellebores.
If you have Ivy in the garden, that will provide lots of food and shelter for wildlife in the dead of winter, but if not, it’s time to plant some.
2 – Don’t be so Tidy
Many people may want to pull up all the dead plants that are going over or rake up the leaves that have fallen onto the ground at this time, but those things are lifelines for our wildlife. Insects hibernate in the stalks and stems of old flowers over winter. Birds eat any seeds left on the plants. Insects live under the leaves and old bits of wood on the ground. So if you can, leave those dead plants in the ground and clean them up in early spring instead. And put all those leaves and bits of deadwood in a pile or two in the corner of your garden instead of chucking them out.
3 – Help the Hedgehogs
If you haven’t already, make sure you cut a 13cm square hole at the bottom of your fence to let hedgehogs get access. If you want to encourage hedgehogs to hibernate in your garden then you could buy or make a hedgehog home and put it in a quiet corner of your garden with some fresh food and water. If you plan to have a bonfire during the autumn, don’t forget to check that no hedgehogs have decided to use it as a home before you light it.
4 – A pond
Now would be a great time to add a pond to your garden, but try to make sure it’s at least 60 – 90 cm deep in at least one part so that it won’t freeze over completely. You could also add a tennis ball to float in the top to help prevent it from freezing over fully.
5 – Support the bees
If you don’t already have a bee hotel, consider putting one in. Not all bees will use bee hotels though – some like to nest in the ground so leave some grass growing long to help them (long grass also attracts some species of butterflies to lay their eggs on it). You could also leave stacks of plant pots in a sheltered spot that queen bees may use to hibernate in.
6 – Feed the birds
While there is usually a lot of abundant food for birds in Autumn, by the time we get to winter, food is very scarce. Now is the time to start considering how you can help birds with food during winter. Along with making sure you have some berry-producing trees or bushes in your garden, putting out food like seeds, nuts and fat balls throughout autumn and winter is important. A great activity you can do with kids is to find some pinecones, cover them in fatty products and seeds, and hang those out for the birds.
So there are 6 ways you can make your garden more wildlife-friendly this autumn. And most importantly, don’t forget to go out and enjoy seeing all the wonderful life thriving around you.