Wildlife and Your Garden: What You Should Know
You might want a beautiful looking garden, but do you know how to make it look really whimsical? Take care of wildlife!
The wildlife that enters your garden can really add to it, especially if you have kids and want to educate them.
Don’t automatically assume that any wildlife in your garden is a pest. Below, we’ll tell you what you need to know about wildlife in your own garden.
Bird Boxes And Feeding The Birds
Birds are such an important part of our garden ecosystems. By using bird boxes and making sure you make the effort to feed them, they can thrive.
Put your bird box up high in a sheltered site. Seeds are best in the winter, but use protein balls in spring.
Make sure to keep your birdbath always topped up with fresh, clean water too. They will especially appreciate this during the summer!
Grow Your Grass Out
Growing your grass out a little allows and encourages more wildlife in. You can still keep it tidy, just don’t cut it too short or you’ll deter any kind of wildlife from coming in.
Always Double Check Before You Mow Your Grass Or Use Garden Tools
Never mow your grass or use garden tools without giving everywhere a quick once over. Doing so without checking can be fatal to poor hedgehogs and other wildlife that may be hiding.
If you want to make sure any hedgehogs are well looked after in your garden, you could purchase hedgehog food and leave a plate out.
Leave Debris In Your Garden
Piles of rocks, twigs and rotting wood in your garden all count as debris and give insects and bugs a great place to hide.
Many important insects, such as beetles and spiders, will love staying in your garden.
Grow Flowers
Flowers bring colour and gorgeous scents into your garden – they provide food for all kinds of insects, too.
Grow as many varieties as possible to ensure colour from spring through into autumn, and go for native species, if possible.
Use Ivy
Ivy can be very useful for wildlife in your garden. It can make great food for bats and birds, and make a wonderful home for hibernating insects.
Save The Bees
Bees need to be saved, and every little helps. Make sure bees that visit your garden can have a drink by putting out shallow dishes of water filled with pebbles. You can drop by sites like Natural Dwellers to learn more about how these fascinating insects play a part towards contributing to the ecosystem.
Create A Pond
Having a pond is a great way to keep wildlife happy, but you should make sure it’s always topped up with clean water. This will give plenty of oxygen to fish and other wildlife.
Get rid of weeds, but be mindful of any creatures stuck in them by leaving them on the side overnight to return to the pond.
Without a pond, you’re missing out on water beetles, water fleas, dragonfly nymphs, aquatic snails, and more.
If you want to create the perfect garden and protect wildlife, then the above ideas will help. Leave your thoughts below!
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Lovely blog, I like watching the wildlife in my garden 🙂
Love watching the wildlife in our garden. We live in the country so have an abundance of animals / birds that visit us, and are forever topping up our feeders for the birds and squirrels.
I love to see wildlife in the garden especially hedgehogs, we have a hedgehog home at the back amongst the flower beds, and plenty of wild flowers to attract the bees and butterflys
We have two squirrels in our garden and they are always digging in the grass, do they eat worms I wonder?! We also have a Robin who comes to visit all the time.
They do! They are also known to hide their nuts in the grass to come back or at least the ones in my Mums garden do.
Great for eating up the slugs. Gave up slug pellets years ago so that the hedgehogs wouldn’t get sick.
We often have hedgehogs in our garden. They are so cute.
I love hedgehogs – we definitely get them around as well.