Reap the rewards of a wild garden makeover

GARDENS are important to wildlife and, in my opinion at least, wildlife is important to gardens.

Certainly the feedback I get to this column indicates a lot of its readers feel birds, butterflies, frogs and hedgehogs increase the pleasure they get from their garden.

So here are a few ideas for ways to make your garden better for wildlife in 2011, starting with the most obvious thing — feeding wild birds.

I’m sure the modern theory that you should continue to feed birds all year is correct. It’s also obvious you need a variety of foods — niger seed, peanuts, mixed bird seed, wholemeal bread, fat balls and apples all appeal to different species. It’s good to vary the way you present the feed because some species prefer to eat on the ground while others hate it, some species are good at coping with hanging feeders and others aren’t.

Just the berries

A good wildlife garden will also contain lots of more natural food such as berry-bearing trees and shrubs such as rowan, cotoneaster and berberis and flowers that are allowed to go to seed. And there will be plenty of insects and other creepy-crawlies to provide the high-protein diet birds need.

Nest boxes

Nest boxes don’t always work but when they do they can make a big difference. You can get open-fronted types but the most successful ones are normally the closed types designed to attract hole-nesting birds. If you live in a farm house surrounded by old out-buildings there will probably be enough natural cracks and crevices around but if you live on a modern housing estate birds like tits and sparrows may be constrained by a lack of nest sites.

Pond life

A water feature or a pond is one of the best things you could add, not just for birds but for small mammals, insects, frogs and possibly newts. It’s vital that it’s easy to escape from if an animal falls in accidentally — you don’t want to end up drowning hedgehogs and this is even more important if you have ambitions to entertain amphibians like frogs or newts because they’re continually entering and leaving the water.

Frogs, newts and hedgehogs all hibernate and they need suitable places to do this. Hedgehogs like a pile of brushwood or prunings, frogs and newts prefer a few logs or large stones with cracks between them that they can crawl into.

Grasping the nettle

Bumble bee queens also hibernate and so do some butterflies. Most bumble bee species make a hibernation nest underground, sometimes using an old mouse-hole or a crack in a thick garden wall. Don’t block up their front door. Many gardeners know from observation which flowers attract butterflies to drink nectar. But the food plants for the caterpillars are usually quite different. Unfortunately the single best one is the stinging nettle, which is not popular in gardens.

General rules

These are all specific things but there are also a few general principles that contribute to improving a wildlife garden. The most important one is to limit the use of insecticides and, if you feel you have to, use the more benign ones containing plant extracts, such as pyrethrum or derris. Invertebrates are the base of the pyramid of life in your garden. Powerful weedkillers are unfriendly to wildlife.

Also if you want a variety of wildlife your garden, however small, should offer a variety of habitats. A lawn is popular with blackbirds during the day and hedgehogs at night, but to a blue tit it’s a green desert. And make sure you have some dense evergreen shrubs, climbers or hedges to shelter the birds on cold nights.

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