Sleeping hogs thrive
hedgehogs have access to your garden first by cutting hedgehog highways into the bottom of fence panels or installing hedges as boundaries, which allow free movement between gardens.
Most importantly, if you’re planning a bonfire in your garden, be sure to check that no hedgehogs have crawled into the pile thinking it’s a great spot for hibernation before you light it.
It’s worth lighting bonfires from one side only just in case, so that any hidden hedgehogs can escape from the other side.
WATER-BASED HIBERNATORS
Other helpful hibernators include amphibians like newts, frogs and toads, which also eat buckets of cropmunching insects. If you have a pond nearby, they’ll be planning on going into hibernation shortly. They love to hide under rocks as they go into their long winter sleep.
I normally turn a terracotta pot on its side and bury half of it, side-on, into the ground like an open-mouthed hut. Cram in twigs and leaves and it makes a great sheltered spot for these creatures over winter.
If you don’t have a pond at home, look at installing one now to get ready for next year.
If you don’t have small children at home, they’re marvellous to have in the garden both for amphibians and for birds and hedgehogs to drink from.
Install a pond with sloping sides to allow creatures to escape easily and check regularly at this time of year to ensure it hasn’t frozen over, making water inaccessible. If frozen, use a hot kettle to thaw the water as smashing it can harm pond inhabitants.
Alternatively, leave a tennis ball floating on the surface, which will leave a natural space if the ice covers the rest—then creatures will still have a breathing hole.
OTHER HIBERNATORS
Insects like stag beetles and ladybirds also need to hibernate during winter. To help them, simply leave a bit of your garden untidy.
It works particularly well left at the back of your plot, underneath a hedge or tucked round behind the garage.
Add in a few leaves, stacked logs, or terracotta pots on their side. Ladybirds will eat around 5,000 aphids in their lifetime so are marvellous to have in the garden. I pick up a few open pinecones on a woodland walk and then stuff them into netted fruit bags from the shopping.
Simply leave them in sheltered parts of the garden to help the ladybirds to help you. Be careful not to leave them too low or ground-based critters like hedgehogs might get caught in them.
So, you don’t have to spend a lot to support a habitat for many gardenfriendly hibernators this winter.
Protecting these little creatures and keeping them tucked up during the winter means they’ll be able to get started when the weather warms up.
It will help increase the population and protect your plants next spring. Hedgehogs need a little TLC