Quick & easy wildlife wins
Adrian Thomas suggests some simple ways to improve your garden for wildlife – at a price that won’t break the bank!
Here are some simple ways to welcome wildlife – at a price that won’t break the bank
Making your garden wildlife friendly is great for the planet but need not be hard on the wallet or take a huge amount of time and effort. Here are some of the best ways to make your garden a better home for wildlife, which will bring you plenty of pleasure into the bargain.
1 Make a bee nursery COST £0
When we think of bees, we tend to focus on big, furry bumblebees, or honeybees. However, more than 220 of the UK’s 250 bee species are solitary bees. Typically smaller than the more familiar bee types, they rarely sting and are vital pollinators of fruit and flowers. You can easily help several species by providing them with a ‘bee hotel’, crammed full of hollow tubes. A queen lays her eggs inside the tubes, provides them with a parting gift of nectar and pollen, then leaves and dies. The young hatch and grow alone, feeding on supplies their mum left for them. You can make your own by drilling 2-10mm holes in a log using different drill-bit sizes. Go as deep as the drill bit allows and place your log in a sunny, sheltered position.
2 Leave seedheads in winter COST £0
If you clear away every stem and spent flower in autumn, you’re missing out on the visual treat of their frost-dusted seedheads in winter. Wildlife also loses out; those seedheads might have fed flocks of finches, and provided hibernation homes for ladybirds, in the hollow nooks and crannies. Instead, clear up any stems that the weather has bashed to the ground, but leave intact those that are standing strong, until spring. This can also help protect your soil over winter.
4 Grow a tree COST £10
Many people think tree growing is expensive but if you use spring and summer to plan the right location, you can pick up a bare-rooted tree for only a few pounds next November. It’s not hard either – simply dig a hole, pop it in, pile back the soil and firm in well. Just be careful not to let the roots dry out when you get it out of the bag, and give it a good water after planting and then in any dry spells
3 Make a mini-pond COST £5–£20
Ponds don’t need to be large and expensive; all you need is an old Belfast sink, washing-up bowl (see p26), or square of flexible, long-lasting butyl liner. Ideally, sink your mini-pond into the ground so creatures can get in and out easily. Choose a fairly sunny location where leaves won’t drop in autumn, and check it’s level and stable before you fill it with rainwater from a waterbutt – tap water has too many chemicals. Add some washed gravel to the base, then plant with native underwater weed hornwort, and dramatic Equisetum hyemale, that sits with its feet in the water.
5 Ditch pesticides COST £0
While it can seem the easy option to reach for sprays or slug pellets, killing off ‘pests’ so often affects other wildlife, too. If you think things such as a bug killer only destroys the ‘bad’ guys, think again – it kills the good, the bad, and everything in between. Nature relies on unbroken food chains: like a stack of cards, if you remove a lower layer, the upper tiers fall. If you give nature a chance, it finds a balance. Your garden won’t be pest-free, and there may be some nibble damage, but it will be a healthy garden for everyone.
6 Put up a birdbox COST £0-£15
Create a nestbox from unwanted offcuts of wood – or pick up a decent one for about £10. Look for one with a 25mm (blue tits) or 32mm (house sparrows) diameter hole. The distance from hole to base should be 15cm (6in) or more, with no perch. Fix it securely to a tree trunk or wall facing between north and east.
With just a bit of effort, we can collectively make a big difference for nature
7 Let the lawn grow long COST £0
More gardeners are letting areas of grass grow long. You don’t have to let the whole lawn grow tall – try neat edges cut around a block, or paths cut through the middle, so it looks attractive and intentional. It saves you so much time and energy, and is a godsend for butterflies, bees and grasshoppers. Let wild daffodil or crocus bulbs grow in spring, then cut from midsummer onwards. Or, cut a couple of times in early spring then make the next cut in late summer. Scarify the surface and scatter yellow rattle seed in autumn to reduce grass vigour.
8 Create habitat piles COST £0
Tuck away piles of logs and sticks into hidden corners, or artistically arrange them. Start a compost heap, which is a hothouse home for a whole range of creatures, from brandling worms to woodlice, which in turn attract slow-worms and toads.
9 Carve out a hedgehog highway COST £0
One garden doesn’t have enough food to sustain one hedgehog, so they have to rove around at night. All too often, they either can’t get into a garden, or struggle to get out of it. That’s why cutting a few small (13cm/5in x 13cm/5in) holes into the base of fences can offer a lifeline to them. It’s not just hedgehogs that benefit: frogs, newts, even beetles will use these gateways to happiness.
10 Boost greenery COST £0–£20
A garden full of plants offers food and shelter for wildlife, but rather than buying mature plants, sow them, divide your own (see p37), take cuttings and save self-sown seedlings. You’ll soon multiply the mass of foliage and flowers you have. See our suggestions for wildlife-friendly plants that are easy to grow from seed (p72).