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 Environment  > Green Garden

Tips for Wildlife Gardening

•  Habitat Creation 
•  Walls and Fences 
•  Ponds 
•  Composting 
•  General Tips 
    for encouraging and supporting wildlife
•  Get Active! 
•  What not to do! 

Developing a Green Garden

Gardeners who use chemicals, spread peat and burn rubbish should consider how these actions add up and affect the wider environment. For those gardeners who care for the Earth alternative approaches are available.

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Top Tips for Wildlife Gardening

Habitat Creation

Use unwanted rubble constructively and build a stone and earth mound - great for hibernating newts, frogs and lizards.

Some bumblebees will nest in bird boxes. Don't evict them; they need nest sites too! Leave woody stems from pampas grass etc. in the winter as they are excellent nest sites for solitary bees.

A rotten log by a pond provides an excellent egg-laying site for southern hawker dragonflies.

Whatever the time of year, check your bonfire pile before burning - hedgehogs may be hibernating (or wrens nesting) in them.

If you have slow worms in your garden, keep plenty of rough grass and some rocks and logs for shelter.

Ivy on trees does no harm to the tree and provides food and shelter for wildlife.

If you find bats in your loft inform English Nature or our local bat warden – contactable via the council or this centre. All bats are strictly protected by law. Leaving a gap in the soffit or having a slightly loose roof tile or two would help them.

Make a lacewing motel from half a plastic bottle and some corrugated or partial corrugated cardboard. Lacewing larvae, along with lady-bird and hover fly larvae will take care of aphids (greenfly) so you won't need harmful chemical sprays. Put them outdoors in Autumn and move them to a greenhouse or shed in Winter.

Make a pile of logs for amphibians and fungi to thrive in or on.

Leave a big pile of twiggy material in a corner or near slug infested areas. Hedgehogs and frogs will take up residence and act as a natural pest control.

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Walls and Fences

If you already have a garden wall, put up trellises about 10 - 15cm away from the wall, attaching them with spacing blocks. Plant climbing plants 10cm or so away from the trellises. As well as providing cover for nesting birds, wild honeysuckle and ivy will offer hibernation sites for butterflies such as brimstone. Honeysuckle is a good foodstuff for Hawk moths; and ivy, which flowers very late in the season, is good for hoverflies and many butterflies.

Use an open-fronted nest box behind a climbing plant to attract nesting robins.

Place a log pile at the foot of a fence or wall, behind a bush, as a cool shady spot for amphibians and for hibernating insects such as ladybirds.

Don't fill in holes in walls, especially screw holes. These will be used by leaf cutter and red mason bees who are both docile, won't cause additional damage and are two of the best pollinators.

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Ponds

Make sure your garden pond has gently sloping edges. Hedgehogs can easily drown if they can't escape from water. If you have a formal pond with straight edges you can provide a piece of netting or a gently sloping tube.

Frogs, toads and slow worms eat slugs - so do hedgehogs. You don't need slug pellets which kill birds.

Fish eat frog tadpoles. If you want frogs avoid fish in your pond.

Why not make a rockery from the earth displaced when you dig your pond?

Tap water can be enriched with nutrients and may make your pond thick with algae. Run off from garden fertilisers is most often the cause of algal blooms. Get composting – you won't need artificial fertilisers any more.

Site your pond where it gets maximum sunlight and least leaf litter.

The more different depths you can get in your pond the greater its value to wildlife.

Don't worry if your frogs get overcrowded. Removing spawn simply reduces competition and can result in even more frogs in the long term.

Avoid non-native water plants, especially Crassula helmsii, Azolla filiculoides, Hydrocotyle ranunculoides and Myriophyllum aquaticum. These may be sold under a variety of English names in garden centres.

Good, colourful pond plants include marsh marigold, purple loosestrife, lesser spearwort, water mint, ragged-robin, water avens and pond sedges.

Slabs around a pond can provide hibernation sites for newts.

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Composting

Compost heaps can shelter slow worms, toads and grass snakes. Be careful when digging them over!

Most purchased garden compost contains peat - Look for peat-free alternatives so as not to profit by destroying a delicate habitat elsewhere.

Garden waste can damage the countryside. Don't dump it. Take it to your nearest municipal tip or compost it yourself.
Do not dispose of Invasive Plants, especially Japanese Knotweed for which there is an unlimited fine.

Get together with your neighbours (or garden society) and buy a shredder between you so you can compost all your woody garden waste.

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General tips for encouraging and supporting wildlife

Leave gaps under fences and sheds for hedgehogs to get through. They like to roam and will have set ‘runs'. They may also use the gap under a shed to nest in.

Put out bird food in the morning. Leaving it out in the evening will possibly encourage rats.

Consider putting out fat feeders for birds. You can make your own with seed, nuts, raisins, bird peanuts and lard pushed into drilled holes in small logs/branches, in an upside down coconut or yogurt pot. Birds need to be fed all year round due to the loss of hedgerows, woodland and chemical pesticides in agriculture. Fat is especially good in winter as it helps to keep the birds fully fed.

Plant sunflowers and leave the seed heads on or string them up for birds to feed on.

Leave rosehips on the roses to go to seed over winter – again the birds will make good use of them.

If you have a dog or cat put loose hair from grooming on the bird tableor on twiggy bits of bush high up in Spring for birds to use in their nests.

If you have fruit trees leave a few windfalls around or some fruit on the tree or bush for the birds and insects.

Find native species of plants or maybe even sow a small part of your lawn as a wildflower meadow. This will help to support butterflies and other insects.

Protect your soil structure by putting down mulches such as bark, cardboard or compost in winter.

Leave old tree stumps instead of having them dug out – they are an important habitat for many insects, especially the endangered Stag Beetle.

Trees, shrubs and bushes make great perches for birds waiting to visit bird tables and feeding stations. Make sure you sight your feeding station within easy flying distance.

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Get active

• Ask local garden centres and nurseries for native plants. Discourage them from selling foreign species.
• Lobby government and local government about legislation and the way they manage local amenities and churchyards etc. Do they HAVE to use weed-killer along the edges of walls and fences?
• Make your voice stronger; join an environmental group such as the Environment Centre, HDRA, Friends of the Earth or the Wildlife Trust.

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What not to do!

DO NOT buy alien (non-native) plants

For example, an English silver birch is brown stemmed as a sapling. As it grows it turns silver and supports nearly 1000 different organisms. Many garden centres sell Canadian Silver Birch which is silver as a sapling and only supports about 100 organisms.

DO NOT transport plants over long distances

The New Zealand Flatworm has been spread by people buying plants in one part of the country and taking them home to plant in another area. The flatworm kills off our native worms and is not as good for the soil structure.

DO NOT dump garden waste in the countryside etc.

This is a very quick way of spreading seeds, spores and disease.

DO NOT buy peat based composts

Peat comes from fragile peat-land habitats. To extract it peat bogs are stripped of their vegetation which destroys their wildlife.

DO NOT light Bonfires

Burning any material releases CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) into the atmosphere. This adds to Global Warming and Climate Change. Climate Change is destroying delicate wild habitats.

DO NOT get in an enclosed space (car or van) filled with laurel leaves

Laurel, once cut, emits cyanide. Breathing it in can kill you.

DO NOT use chemical weed killers

Weed killers often kill more than just the weed and can linger in the soil and be passed on to creatures and poison them. Either dig the weeds out or use a small flame torch.

DO NOT use chemical fertilisers

They do not remain in the soil for long, can affect creatures adversely, leak into water systems and poison the water habitat. Composted material will remain in the soil for a much longer time, enrich the soil and therefore in turn feed the plants.

DO NOT over tidy your garden

Leaving woody plant stems and some leaf litter etc helps to provide habitats and ‘corridors' for insects to hibernate and forage in.

DO NOT use Slug pellets

They may kill the slugs but they also kill the birds that eat the slugs and are harmful to toads, frogs and hedgehogs. Use grit, copper, beer traps, cloches and encourage slug eaters to take up residence.

DO NOT take plants or pick flowers from the wild

You can get many species of plant and flower in seed form from people like Landlife and nurseries.

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Green Garden Tips copied from old Ecobuzz website