Wildlife

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There should be lots of wildlife in and around your garden, even in towns. There are many places that discuss all this sort of thing, a good one being the Animals area of the BBC website. Here I have discussed a variety of wildlife issues common to the domestic quarter, but it is only a start. If anything takes your fancy, please explore further in the Forum, Community and News & Articles sections.  

To encourage birds and all sorts of smaller beasties into your garden, it is wise to put out a range of food, drink and shelter for them. Put bird food, such as nuts and bread crumbs, off the ground to avoid prowling cats. Whole nuts can choke birds, so it is best to crush them or use hanging feeders. Fat balls or fat filled, halved coconut shells are good in winter, with the coconut also good for birds. Feeding all year round is recommended, but go light in spring and summer so the birds feed their young on snails and caterpillars.

Small and even large mammals can be fed with nuts, dry dog food and vegetables, but best not to use milk, bread, fish or meat. If you do put out some food, remember to put a shallow dish of water nearby. Birds also need a shallow dish of water for drinking and washing, which they will particularly thank you for in very hot weather.

A pond is a good idea for wildlife, whether large enough to keep Nessie happy on her holidays or small enough to have been made from a kitchen sink. In fact, the old Butler sinks or tin baths are ideal for small ponds, but make sure plants grow into and out of the pond so that creepy crawlies can creep and crawl either way. Yellow irises, starworts and native aquatic plants rooted in a pond-plant basket are all good ideas. A pile of stones or wooden plank up one end will help anything larger get out if it is stupid enough to fall in.  Clear leaves and excess weed out regularly, but leave it next to the pond for a bit before composting, so that pond insects don’t end up composted too. Don’t put fish in small ponds; frogs, newts and insects will find their way into your pond on their own.

Slow worms are great but rapidly becoming a bit rare, so don’t hurt them. They look a bit like snakes, but they blink. They eat slugs, snails and all manner of garden nasties, which is nice, but are slow and easy pray for pet cats. Compost heaps and waste ground are their favourite haunts, as they offer lots of protective cover, but open rockeries and ornamental nooks ‘n’ crannies will do them well if you do not appreciate the allotment approach to garden tidiness.

Organic gardening is good as a general ideology: it is always pleasant, I think, to know you are not turning your plot into a poisoned death zone. If you have the space, consider leaving an area to go fallow or create a meadow for the insects and little mammals. Hedges made from native plants are beloved by almost all wildlife and can be improved further by putting some mammal boxes underneath or up in the hedge.

Leave a gap under your decking, with a few lumps of rock and wood there for good measure, as this provides good shelter for mammals, slow worms, amphibians and leprechauns.

Lacewings and ladybirds eat greenfly. Naturally they live in rotten wood, but if you do not want wood rotting away in your garden or on your balcony, you can simply tie a bunch of sticks together to get the same result. Put this or a bought insect box in a dry, quiet and secure place.

If you pit down gravel, make sure any liner you use beneath it is permeable (water and air can pass through it); otherwise the myriad wrigglers in the soil beneath will suffer badly. It is also best to plant dense foliage around gravel to give shelter

What to do

Let your garden revert to nature a bit or, if you prefer a tidy and ordered garden, put out artificial homes for the smaller residents that run, hop, slither or fly around your kingdom. Remember that they need to eat and drink as well.

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