Become a garden conservationist
It’s new year’s resolution time again! This year mine are simple: plant more beautiful pollinator blooms, find a spot for a new tree and, above all, relax and enjoy my new garden. Lots to look forward to! I’ve got the ‘new year, new garden’ feeling – so much promise and potential awaits those frosty, bare borders outside, so many plans to make and plants and seeds to save up for. What gardening resolutions have you made, I wonder? Pop a pond in, perhaps, or try some new herbs or vegetables? Hopefully you’ll have a few plans to help your wildlife.
As ever, at the forefront of my mind will be trying to preserve (and increase) the wildlife habitat on my plot. Because, really, conservation starts at home. We’re not all park wardens, ecologists or countryside rangers, able to safeguard our wider, wild landscapes; most of us just have a small parcel of land to tend to. But these modest, green rectangles of ours are important. We’re custodians of small slices of open space and, in an ideal world, we should cultivate and manage them as sensitively as the most eager of countryside conservationists.
You see, a radical shift has taken place recently. Previous assumptions that our easy-going ‘common’ wildlife doesn’t need any help and can look after itself have been abandoned. All eyes used to focus on conserving rare species and habitats, but now we realise that many of our much-loved, everyday animals have all but disappeared while we weren’t looking. Scientists are taking note and gardens are now, thankfully, back in the mainstream of conservation thinking.
There’s something we can all do in our back yards to provide a small slice of heaven for fellow animals. Bird feeders are brilliant, of course, but for all their usefulness they’re artificial and can act as sticking a plaster over a much wider problem – lack of planting. Shelter and food for our birds should ideally come as natural as possible in the form of berried plants, dense foliage cover and seeding flowers. And so it follows that the more of these plants you have, the more insects and molluscs, beetles and bugs will also turn up as unwitting tasty treats for them. Once the minibeasts turn up it’s a free for all – your garden will be teeming with wonderful creatures. Never forget that the genesis of this real-life Dr Doolittle situation is your planting – no plants, no animals – so consider what you grow carefully. Once you get going with your growing, wildlife will thrive on your doorstep – and it’ll be all down to you.