Alexandra Campbell discusses taking care of the garden and wildlife

Alexandra Campbell shares her tips on attracting wildlife to the garden.

ONE of the best things about this time of year is hearing the birdsong, seeing bees buzz around our flowers and birds starting to make nests. But they all need our help to survive in this modern world.

It’s easy to think that your garden is too small to help wildlife. Or that a “wildlife garden” has to look shaggy and unkempt. Neither is true.

Birds, small mammals, pollinating insects and bats need food, water and shelter – and they need to be able to reach these things easily.

At this time of year, leafy trees and hedges are especially important because birds need to raise their chicks out of sight of predators. So stop pruning trees and big shrubs, say the RSPB. That’s a winter job! If you haven’t pruned yet, it might be best to wait until September. Just cut off any dangerously overhanging branches.

Modern, super-insulated roofs make life difficult for bats, so it’s a great idea to put up bat boxes. Contact www.bats.org.uk to make sure you get it right.

Flowers are really important for almost all wildlife. The nectar provides food for pollinating insects and bats, and seeds make food for birds.

Try to have something in flower in almost every month of the year, from snowdrops and viburnum in January and February to asters at the end of the year. Single-flowered blooms offer more nectar than elaborate double-blooms.

My favourite wildlifefriendly flowers are English lavender, foxgloves, allium, angelica, penstemons and verbena bonariensis. In the winter, I adore ivy for its berries, and so do the birds.

When you’re choosing plants, there’s often advice about wildlife-friendliness on the label or in the brochure.

And if you like butterflies but don’t want too many caterpillars in your veg patch, grow nasturtiums as a companion plant. Butterflies lay their eggs on it instead of your kale. Well, that’s the theory, and it does sort of work, provided you don’t

mind a few nibbled leaves.

We’re all more aware of the need to feed birds in our gardens. Blackcaps used to migrate to Spain from Germany in the winter, but many now come to Britain, because our bird feeding has improved.

If you use a good quality bird food, then you get a wider variety of birds.

The RSPB sells good bird food and can advise you on what to choose at shopping.rspb.org.uk/bird-food.html. We’ve also found the Peckish range very popular in our garden, too.

And then there’s water. Even a few small bucket ponds will make a big difference to wildlife.

It’s important to make sure that babies and toddlers can’t fall in. And keep mini ponds topped up in dry periods.

Use rainwater from your water butts, not tap water, and don’t keep fish in your wildlife ponds as they will eat insects.

Make sure that wildlife can get in and out of a bucket pond. Put bricks or stones inside and outside, or surround it with pots of different heights.

It’s easy to forget that wildlife need to roam across a larger area than our garden. Birds and insects can fly, but hedgehogs need to get from garden to garden.

Modern fencing with its concrete bases makes their lives impossible. If you have a modern fence, have a five-inch-square hole cut at the base so that hedgehogs can get through. n