Wildlife Garden

With the reduction of natural habitats our gardens can be the only habitats some wildlife can find.  It could be sources of food or a home.   Some times they are welcome and other times not. Inviting in the wildlife can be beneficial to our garden. Attract lacewings to your garden and their larvae will devour aphids, hedgehogs love slugs.  So how do I attract wildlife to my garden?

Putting out bird feeders is an obvious way to attract birds to your garden. Offering different types of foods should attract the widest variety of species.  One problem I have is the feral pigeons who land on the feeders and flap around until the feeder spills onto the floor. But this is only a minor irritation.

Along with bird feeders ponds are probably one of the easiest way to attract wildlife into your garden. Any size pond will work. Just make sure there is a shallow area to allow anything that falls in the pond to climb out. Our pond is home to frogs and newts.  The first year we moved in I added a few goldfish. Whilst these are seen more often than the other inhabitants I perhaps wish I hadn’t as it would have given the frogs, newts and other inhabitants more of a chance.

Nest boxes are a great way to get birds into your garden but they must be situated in a location they where they are not often disturbed.  Nest boxes are available in many shapes and sizes designed to meet the requirements of various birds.  I even saw one that had no entrance.  The label said it was for wood peckers!

The planting in your garden can offer cover and a food source for wildlife.  There will of course be times when you wish some of them weren’t a food source.  Sunflowers look great and then offer a source of seed,  Plant pollen or nectar plants to attract bees. When our large rhododendron comes into flower is attracts dozen of bees at any one time, honeysuckle will offer both. Hedges will offer cover for the movement of small mammals as well as nest sites for birds.

We have a small bug house attached to the garden wall.  I intend to build a bigger version to put in one of the flower beds. Something like the ones I saw in Bug Hotel District   in Manchester city centre

I cant take credit for putting planting this one but at the bottom of our garden is an old tree.  Half the tree is missing leaving huge hole on which we often see squirrels sat or playing. This often seems to be used a staging post in prelude to a raid on the bird feed station.  Mature trees can provide a wealth of habitats for various wildlife. Whilst half the tree is missing it is still a huge tree.  I have left the nettles around the base as when these flower they will attract butterflies.