Wildlife Friendly Gardening

Wildlife-friendly gardening A general guide working today for nature tomorrow Wildlife-friendly gardening A general guide Cottage garden. Paul Keene/Avico Ltd Biodiversity is the amazing Britain is a nation of gardeners. We also love wildlife. Until richness and variety of wildlife quite recently though, we tended around us. English Nature to keep our two loves apart. We went to the country to see believes that everyone should wild animals and wild flowers be able to enjoy a greater and kept the garden for cultivated plants and lawns. But close-mown wealth of wildlife and pass on a lawns and carefully weeded rich and diverse natural borders of roses offer few opportunities for wildlife. Sadly, heritage to future generations. the same is now true of much of Everyone can do their bit for the farmed countryside, as advances in food production have biodiversity by gardening with usually been made at the expense wildlife in mind. of wildlife habitats. 2 Getting started • List what is currently in your garden. Is there a water course The kind of wildlife garden you can or a naturally damp hollow? create will depend on the size and aspect of your plot and on the soil, • Are there shrubs or a portion whether peaty or lime-rich, of hedge, or a stone or brick free-draining or clayey. And, of wall? All these will form anchor course, on your own tastes and points when you consider where interests. If it’s a new garden, don’t to plant or dig. rush to blanket the surface with topsoil - many wild flowers prefer • Note which parts catch the the less fertile subsoil. If it’s already sun, and when. Are there well-established, make a list or plan. places of permanent shade Better still, draw a diagram of or any natural sun-traps? existing features and consider how Mark them on your plan. they might be enhanced to benefit wildlife. Involve your children from • Squat down and examine the the start. Their enthusiasm and surface. Is it entirely level or imagination will be valuable allies, are there rises and depressions? both now and later. Here are some Could these be raised into things to do and to look out for: banks or deepened into dells? Nature thrives on irregularity. Ox-eye daisies. Charron Pugsley-Hill/English Nature • Consider what uses your garden will serve. You may want space for growing your own fruit and vegetables; children may need room to play. Many people grade their garden from a patio and bird table close to the house, through play space to a pond and a ‘wilderness’ at the back. • Don’t be in too much of a hurry! Working with nature takes a little time. Make a timetable, and plan things over a year or more. You can always get more ambitious later on, as your expertise and enthusiasm grow. Wildlife-friendly gardening 3 Small pond for wildlife. George Barker/English Nature You don’t have to let your garden try not to use herbicides, slug pellets ‘go wild’ to make it attractive to or pesticide sprays. In a well- wildlife. Beauty and wild gardening balanced garden, natural predators do are not at all incompatible and the much of your job for you - and for best nature gardens are the product free. Your example may be one that of careful planning and... well, neighbours may follow and it will be thoughtful gardening. hugely beneficial to the wildlife living in and visiting your garden. The secret of gardening with nature is to relax: the solution to some Ponds and other wet bits problems may be to do nothing at all. Ask yourself whether you really If watching nature gives you have to mow all the lawn quite so pleasure, dig a pond. Garden ponds often. Why not let some plants go to have helped to conserve frogs, seed, instead of cutting them after dragonflies and many other water flowering, or allow the ivy to spread creatures, whose natural habitats further along the wall? Look for have disappeared or become polluted. beauty in small, modest flowers like It’s amazing how quickly some of speedwells and campions. Above all, these will discover a new home. 4 Before long, there is an entire bank or rockery. As you dig, make a self-contained ecosystem in gently sloping shelf. When you’ve your own backyard! finished, make the hole as smooth as you can, picking out any stones and There is no ideal size for a wildlife debris and using sand to fill any pond - just make it as large as you gaps. Use a piece of old carpet felt can and at least half a metre deep in or jute sacking to cushion the hole the middle. Even really small ponds and then spread out a heavy duty can be useful for wildlife and a butyl rubber sheet, tucking it into source of enjoyment for you. An the edges and bays. You can now ideal location for a pond is a natural buy specially-made underlays if hollow which catches the sun. An you need them and these can go irregular or kidney-shaped pond may both under and over the rubber liner. look better than a circle or rectangle, Liners are available from most good and there should be a shallow shelf garden centres. There is no need to on the sunny side at least. A pond add soil. Hose in the water. Finally, can be at the centre of the wild tuck the sheet under at the edges, garden, perhaps as part of a larger weighing it down with turfs or tones. bog garden, or tucked away in a Your pond awaits your pleasure! secluded corner - although here it may quickly fill with leaves. Make sure that you consider small children - water has a magnetic attraction for toddlers. Fencing or a hard grill may be required. First, peg out the chosen area and a zone for dumping earth and stones. This spoil can The “common” frog is now a rarity in some places but flourishes in gardens. be used for a Roy Harris/English Nature Wildlife-friendly gardening 5 When choosing pond plants, go the suppliers if in doubt. mainly for native species. Many Garden centres provide a wide are very attractive and often range of pond plants, from those deliciously scented. Some plants of the water margin, like water should never be introduced to plantain, water mint and bog-bean, garden ponds, let alone the wild, to true aquatics like water crowfoot, as they are very invasive and starwort and water milfoil. Large out-compete those which are water lilies are suitable only for more desirable in wildlife ponds. large ponds, but floating plants Species to be avoided include like amphibious bistort and parrot’s feather, Canadian Potomogeton natans are ideal. pondweed and Australian stonecrop. For vivid colour, try flowering rush, Ask for advice from purple loosestrife or marsh marigold. The common darter is often found around garden ponds. Paul Lacey/English Nature 6 To give the ecosystem a boost, add a few bucketfuls of mud from a well-established local pond. If you want to attract frogs and newts, don’t stock the pond with fish. They may gobble up the tadpoles - and lots more besides. If you must have fish, think sticklebacks, rather than goldfish. Periodic pond jobs will include scooping out leaves and much of the plant growth in the autumn, and topping up Cowslips. Charron Pugsley-Hill/English Nature in hot weather. Rainwater is best for this, either remedies, if allowed enough time. collected in a water butt or, ideally, Once established, a wildlife pond channelled directly from the gutters maintains itself reasonably well. If of the house. As the pond settles you are very short of space, try down, you may have an epidemic of sinking an old enamel or china bath blanketweed (green thread-like or kitchen sink (with the plug in!) algae). You can rake out the worst into a corner. Add a few stones at of it (it makes good compost), but one end, so that frogs and toads can don’t panic - nature has its own crawl out as well as jump in. Wildlife-friendly gardening 7 Purple loosestrife makes a magnificent spectacle in late summer. Dr Chris Gibson/English Nature Do-it-yourself marshland Remember those summer meadows... A DIY marsh can be made in the same way as a pond, using butyl Few of us live close to a real flower sheets. In this case, dig a shallow meadow, worked for hay in the old saucer-shaped hole, spread the familiar way. But a pocket-sized sheeting and then fill it in again! version can be created, with a little You can extend your pond into a real effort, and once established will hum wetland in this way, or use it as a with bees and dance with butterflies substitute for a pond if you have in summer. A gardening definition of small children. Many plants of pond a meadow might be ‘an overgrown margins will grow quite happily in lawn’. Unfortunately, most lawns - your artificial marsh, as long as it if left uncut - turn into dull, rank stays permanently wet. Maintaining fields with few wild flowers other water levels is important, to avoid than docks and thistles. For a nettles and docks taking over. beautiful meadow, whether a spring 8 one with bulbs and cowslips or a sowing, though, first make sure that summer one sprinkled with ox-eye the ground is free of ‘hard-case’ daisies, knapweed, scabious and a weeds like ground elder and couch- score of other flowers - some grass.

Load more