Welcome wildlife into your garden

WORLD Wildlife Day is on the horizon, meaning gardeners will be thinking about how to attract more creatures to their plot through nectar-rich plants, bird food and good garden practices.

But what if you are killing your wildlife with kindness? Here are some common mistakes gardeners make, and advice from experts on how to keep wildlife safe.

DON’T... Serve up fat balls in plastic netting

Peanuts and fat balls are regularly sold in nylon mesh bags. Never put out any food in mesh bags, the RSPB (rspb.org. uk) advises. These may trap birds’ feet and cause broken or torn off feet and legs. Birds with a barbed tongue, such as woodpeckers, can become trapped by their beaks. Instead, hang a half coconut filled with fat balls in a tree.

DON’T... Feed birds dodgy seed mixes

The RSPB advises bird lovers to avoid seed mixtures containing split peas, beans, dried rice or lentils, as only the large species can eat them dry. They are added to some cheaper seed mixes to bulk them up. Any mixture containing green or pink lumps should be avoided as they are dog biscuit, which can only be eaten when soaked. Poor quality peanuts can carry the aflatoxin fungus, which can kill birds if they eat it. Instead, make sure you buy peanuts that are guaranteed aflatoxinfree from a reputable supplier. And buy seed mixes from a reputable source such as the RSPB, checking which species the mix is likely to attract before you buy.

DON’T... Use pesticides

Many gardening experts agree that chemical pesticides are mostly nonspecific, so will destroy beneficial insects as well as the nuisance ones, which will then start to upset the balance of nature.

Instead, go organic and opt for different methods. You can use beer traps or handpick slugs and snails off your plants after a downpour, wipe or wash aphids off badly affected plants as they appear, and use parasitic nematodes as a biological control for vine weevil.

DON’T... Cut hedges at the wrong time Resist cutting hedges and trees between March and August, as this is the main breeding season for nesting birds, although some birds may nest outside this period, says the RSPB.

DON’T... Box creatures in

You may love seeing creatures visit your garden, but wildlife is not a pet, and should be free to roam in and out of the garden. So don’t box wildlife in with high fencing – a hedgehog, for example, needs to walk a mile a night searching for food and a mate. Instead, create safe corridors from your garden to the one next door, by making gaps at the base of your fence.

Also, let some of your lawn grow longer. Voles, shrews, frogs, toads, beetles and hedgehogs like to move through long grasses rather than out in the open.

DON’T... Tidy your garden too much

If you remove all your leaves and other garden debris from your beds and borders, you’re effectively depriving any visiting wildlife from shelter and food.

Instead, tidy up in spring, when wildlife is waking up rather than going to sleep. And at least plant some strong perennials such as Sedum ‘Herbstfreude’ whose seedheads will be left standing when you prune the rest, to provide birds and insects with shelter and food.

DON’T... Give milk to hedgehogs

You may be tempted to treat your visiting hedgehog to a bowl of milk instead of water, but it doesn’t agree with them and can cause diarrhoea. Instead, give them a shallow bowl of water and some additional food, such as meaty cat or dog food, and hedgehog food.

World Wildlife Day, March 3, wildlifeday.org

weather molluscs will be on the slither. And their reproductive powers are awesome. Being hermaphrodites, many can self fertilise so don’t even need sex to reproduce.

Slugs can lay clutches up to 200 strong. Of my 3 pet hates, Deroceras reticulatum, the little grey or beige job manages 60 in a session. At least this small horror is specially susceptible to dry conditions so didn’t make an appearance two years ago. It burrowed deep but sadly reemerged at the first sign of rain.

The much larger Arion vulgaris was impervious to the drought and managed to soldier on, laying a batch of 100 eggs, while the underground keeled slug continued weaving his way through tattie tubers.

So set the traps, look under stones or pots, go on midnight patrols to catch the culprits, or lure and ensnare these little cannibals with one of their own number.