Contents

Cover

Title Page

The Garden Habitat

Garden diversity

Wildlife-friendly gardens

Planning your garden

A wildlife meadow

The garden hedge

Wildlife walls

The garden pond

A log garden

Under your feet

The compost heap

Garden Mammals

Reading the signs

Hedgehogs

Rodents

Deer

Foxes

Badgers

Bats

Garden Birds

A beak for the job

Food for the birds

Plants for birds

Familiar garden birds

Identifying garden birds

Houses for birds

Dealing with casualties

Reptiles and Amphibians

Lizards

Snakes

Frogs, toads and newts

Insects and Other Invertebrates

Butterflies

Identifying butterflies

Garden moths

Identifying moths

Bees and wasps

Dragonflies

Ladybirds

Spiders

Keep Reading

Keeping a record

Useful information

Bibliography

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Michael Chinery

PART ONE

The Garden Habitat

All over the world, forests are being felled, wetlands are being drained, and heaths and grasslands are being ploughed up to make way for crops and houses. However, while these natural or semi-natural habitats are shrinking in the face of the increasing human population, one habitat – the garden – is increasing, and I think it is no exaggeration to say that today’s gardens are our most important nature reserves.

Gardens cover almost a million hectares of the United Kingdom alone, and it is this enormous extent, as well as their great variety, that makes them such valuable wildlife refuges. In some areas, gardens are undoubtedly more important for wildlife than the surrounding ‘countryside’, with its pesticide-drenched monocultures. This is true even where the gardener does nothing in particular to encourage visitors: the wide range of plants cultivated in a typical garden is itself enough to attract lots of insects, and the insects bring in the birds.

Wildlife gardening aims to increase the number of native species visiting and residing in the garden, but it need not entail any loss of productivity. By being more laid-back and a little less tidy, you can have a garden buzzing with wildlife and filled with tasty crops and fine flowers. Your guests will actually do much of the pest control for you – free of charge!

Garden diversity

Although I have referred to the garden as a single habitat, on a par with a woodland or a meadow, most gardens are really very complex mixtures of habitats, each supporting its own rich assemblage of plant and animal life.

Flower beds

The flower border, a major feature of most gardens, contains a wide range of plants that flower at different times and attract insects and other small creatures for much of the year. Caterpillars chew the leaves, bugs suck the sap, bees and butterflies feast on the nectar, and many other insects attack the fruits and seeds. Hidden from view, the roots also provide sustenance for wireworms, leatherjackets, slugs, millipedes and numerous other creepy-crawlies, while earthworms derive most of their nourishment from the decaying plant matter in the soil. All of these small creatures provide food for birds and small mammals, so even a very simple flower border is really a mixture of several micro-habitats.

Michael Chinery

Even the smallest of backyards can be a riot of colour, packed with flowers that act as filling stations for butterflies and many other insects.

Michael Chinery

Tiny mosses, seen here covered with pear-shaped spore capsules, erupt from the smallest cracks in walls and paths.

Vegetable plots

The vegetable plot has a similar diversity, although it does not have much in the way of nectar sources and, being subject to more disturbance as crops are planted and harvested, it tends to support a smaller variety of animal life in general.

Trees, shrubberies and hedges

These lend welcome shade and shelter to other parts of the garden and are micro-habitats in their own right, providing homes and hunting grounds for insects, spiders, birds and many other creatures.

Walls, fences and paths

CONSERVATION TIP

If you find a strange creature in your garden, don’t assume it is harmful. Before squashing it with your foot, try to find out what it is and what it does. You will probably find that it is harmless or even useful – and then you won’t need to squash it!

These provide yet more living space for both flora and fauna, a fact that is easily appreciated when you look at the number of spider webs that adorn the fences in the autumn. Even concrete paths can support wildlife, tiny mosses wedge themselves into cracks in the concrete, while ants often nest underneath the paths and benefit from the heat absorbed by the concrete on sunny days – although you might not know that they are there until they fly off on their marriage flights in the summer.

Garden ponds

A pond is one of the richest of all wildlife habitats, and garden ponds are, happily, becoming increasingly popular. Pond-watching can be great fun, and the garden pond can literally be a life-saver for frogs, toads and dragonflies, all of which are now suffering from the disappearance of so many farm ponds and other watery sites in the countryside.

Michael Chinery

Hit by the disappearance of so many farm and village ponds, many frogs find refuge in our garden ponds and mop up the slugs in return for the hospitality.

Go for variety

Not all of the visitors to your garden will be welcome guests, of course, but they will all add to the richness of the garden and the great majority will do no harm. They are just using your garden as a home. The more habitats you can create in your garden, the more guests you are likely to get, and the more diversity of wildlife. This can only be good for the wildlife population as a whole.

Michael Chinery

A single climbing rose can feed a huge number of insects, which, in turn, can provide food for numerous spiders and birds. The birds may also nest there, well protected from predators by the rose’s prickly stems.

Wildlife-friendly gardens

Gardening for wildlife involves creating an approximation to one or more natural habitats that will be acceptable to birds and other wild creatures. It does not mean, however, giving the whole garden over to nature. You can continue to grow all your favourite flowers and vegetables in a wildlife garden.

Although a large garden can obviously support more plant and animal life than a small one, size is not that important. Even a small garden can contain several valuable wildlife habitats, such as a hedge, a small spinney or shrubbery, a pond and a grassy bank. It is what you plant in your garden that matters. Cultivated varieties and exotic plants certainly have a role in adding colour and excitement to a garden, but to be really wildlife friendly you do need to grow a selection of native shrubs and other plants. These are the species on which our native insects have evolved, and if you provide food for the insects, then you will indirectly feed many of our garden birds as well.

Having created habitats for the insects and birds, you will need to minimize any disturbance. So be a little less enthusiastic with the lawn mower and the hedge trimmer. Does your lawn really need to look like a bowling green, and does it matter if the hedge is a bit rough around the edges? Don’t be tempted to dead-head all of your plants; this might encourage a longer flowering season but it does deprive birds and insects of food and shelter. Bare soil needs weeding, so cover your garden with as much vegetation as you can; this will keep down the weeds and also give the birds a happy hunting ground. You might well find that wildlife-friendly gardening is gardener friendly as well!

Michael Chinery

The rough grass at the base of the wall in no way detracts from the appearance of this well-managed wildlife garden.

Keep wildlife safe

Household refuse Be sure to pick up any bottles and cans left in the garden after a party, or just a well-earned drink. Apart from the risk of causing injury to yourself or your family, these containers can become coffins for small animals.

Michael Chinery

The great green bush-cricket is a noisy inhabitant of the many undisturbed garden hedges and shrubberies that exist both on the European continent and in southern England.

Thousands of shrews and other small mammals die every year in carelessly abandoned bottles. Getting in to sample the dregs is easy, but climbing the smooth sides to get out again certainly is not. Drink cans are not quite so bad, but beetles and many other useful creatures regularly drown in them.

Michael Chinery

Let brambles scramble over your hedge. Insects will sip nectar from the flowers in summer and the birds, and you, will be able to enjoy the fruits later in the year.

Fruit bushes and netting If you need to put nets over your fruit bushes, do make sure that they are taut and well anchored so that birds and other animals cannot get tangled up in them.

Weedkillers and pesticides If you cannot survive without using weedkillers or other pesticides, be sure to follow the instructions carefully, and to dispose of any dregs where they cannot do any harm. It is very easy to kill vegetation and its associated animal life by careless application of pesticides, especially in windy conditions when sprays can drift far from their intended targets.

CONSERVATION TIP

Don’t use peat in your garden. Our peat bogs have shrunk alarmingly over the last 100 years or so because of the demand for peat, and their wildlife has dwindled accordingly. Plenty of alternatives to peat are on the market now, and for hanging baskets there is ‘Supermoss’ – a sphagnum substitute made from recycled cloth and paper pulp.

A healthy garden

It took millions of years for nature to build up an equilibrium, in which each plant and animal species has its place and in which each helps to keep the rest under control. Nothing lives alone in nature, for every creature either eats or is eaten by one or more other creatures. We have destroyed much of this delicate balance, but it is still not too late to put the process into reverse.

WHAT GOOD ARE MOSQUITOES?

This question is commonly asked by many people who have been bitten by these insects. Mosquitoes don’t do us any good, of course, but, in common with all other living things, they form part of nature’s intricate web and have a role to play in nature’s economy. From the point of view of a hungry swallow or a stickleback, mosquitoes are actually quite good!

Restoring the balance

The key thing is to live and work with nature, steering it in the direction we want in our gardens instead of destroying it completely. If we can achieve an approximation to nature’s balance of predators and prey, then no one species will be able to multiply to such an extent that it becomes a nuisance. By creating some natural habitats in your garden you will inevitably attract their characteristic wildlife. Trees and shrubs, for example, attract birds; ponds are magnets for frogs and toads; and flower beds pull in many colourful insects. These guests will add considerable interest to your garden and will also do much to keep down the less desirable visitors – the pests. They will not eradicate the pests, but the amount of damage is likely to be minimal and you will be able to boast a healthy garden with a balanced ecology.

CJ Wild bird Foods/David White

Although few of these young spiders, just hatched from their eggs, will survive to become adults, undoubtedly they will eat a lot of insects before themselves falling prey to various enemies.

A TYPICAL GARDEN FOOD WEB

Michael Chinery

CJ Wild bird Foods/David White

Colin Varndell

Moth feeds on nectar; spider eats moth; blackbird eats spider. This is a typical food chain. Another example might be plant; insect; vole; fox. Many more such chains can be observed in the garden, and it quickly becomes obvious that these chains are all linked together in a web – because most animals eat more than one kind of food. Blackbirds, for example, are equally happy with earthworms and elderberries, while the bank vole may vary its normally vegetarian diet with snails and fungi as well as insects. Just a few of the chains in a garden food web are illustrated here, with the arrows pointing from the food to the consumers. You will find that each chain starts with a plant. With each species kept in check by its predators and/or food supplies, the whole community remains in a healthy equilibrium.

Garden friends and foes

Older nature books commonly listed the gardener’s friends and foes, but now that we know a lot more about the life histories of the animals and know that everything has its place in nature’s complex web, it is not so easy to pigeonhole them in this way. For example, a centipede eating a harmful slug might be regarded as a friend, but you might change your opinion on discovering that a centipede’s diet consists mainly of other centipedes. Nevertheless, it is still possible to recognize some positively useful creatures – friends – which should be welcomed into the garden and some without which our gardens would be better off. These are the pests that eat our crops and spread diseases and they must be discouraged if not actually destroyed.

FRIEND OR FOE?

This simple, although not infallible, rule of thumb may help you to decide which are the goodies and which are the not-so-good. Fast-moving garden creatures are generally predators and on your side, whereas slow-moving creatures tend to be herbivores and are thus often harmful in the garden.

Our friends

Ground beetles These long-legged, fast-moving insects are most likely to be found lurking under logs and stones. They hunt by night, destroying slugs and many harmful caterpillars.

Michael Chinery

Long, sensitive antennae enable the ground beetle to track down its prey at night.

Lacewings In spite of their fragile appearance, the lacewings are voracious carnivores, destroying hundreds or even thousands of greenfly during their lives.

Michael Chinery

Lacewings often come to lighted windows at night; introduce them to your roses or other plants where they can eat the troublesome aphids.

Hedgehogs Among our most popular garden inhabitants, hedgehogs do good service by getting rid of slugs and snails, although they do destroy the useful earthworms as well.

Michael Chinery

A good friend in the garden, this hedgehog is busily polishing off a snail.

Ladybirds These attractive little beetles eat huge numbers of greenfly and other harmful aphids and are therefore among the gardener’s best friends.

Centipedes These fast-moving carnivores eat a wide range of other creatures, including slugs, insect grubs and other centipedes, which they kill with powerful venom. On balance, they do more good than harm, and they are certainly not dangerous to us.

Our foes

Lily beetles These colourful beetles destroy the leaves and seed capsules of all kinds of lilies. What look like slimy black droppings on the plants are actually the lily beetle grubs which are covered with their own excrement.

Michael Chinery

Beautiful, but also beastly, the lily beetle must go if you value your lilies.

Aphids These tiny bugs occur in huge numbers and they deform many plants by sucking out the sap. They also spread numerous viruses responsible for diseases such as potato leaf roll and various mosaics. There are hundreds of species.

Michael Chinery

This apple shoot has been deformed by the piercing beaks of hundreds of sap-sucking aphids.

Leatherjackets These rather featureless grey creatures are the grubs of crane-flies or daddy-long-legs. They live in the soil, especially under lawns and flower beds, and destroy the roots.

Cabbage white caterpillars The black and yellow caterpillars are the larvae of the large white butterfly. Living in large clusters, they can quickly reduce a cabbage leaf to just a skeleton, and they contaminate the rest of the plant with an unpleasant smell.

Michael Chinery

Caterpillars of the large white butterfly here surround a solitary caterpillar of the small white. Both species are major pests of cabbages and other brassicas.

Slugs Perhaps the most hated of all our garden residents, the slugs nibble their way through our flowers and vegetables with equal enthusiasm. But not all slugs are pests: some of them prefer rotting leaves and fungi (see here).

Michael Chinery

One of the worst of the gardener’s foes: the netted slug is the one we usually find in our lettuces.

Pest control

Gardening will always be a competition, with the gardener pitting his or her wits against an assortment of uninvited guests which are doing their best to damage the plants. Although you may have to get tough from time to time, it need not be all-out war. Live and let live is always a good motto for the gardener.

Avoid chemicals

One can buy chemicals, i.e. poison, to control just about every garden visitor, but they have many drawbacks. There is always a risk of killing useful or harmless creatures as well as pests. Killing useful creatures, such as ladybirds, may actually lead to an increase in the garden’s aphid population and a tendency to use ever increasing doses of insecticide. Although most modern pesticides break down rapidly in the soil, heavy applications may lead to a build-up of residues that can damage the soil and enter the food chains, where they can have far-reaching and surprising effects. Killing harmless creatures does have a knock-on effect by denying birds and other animals their natural food, so your garden will be much less interesting. The true wildlife gardener uses non-poisonous means to discourage or get rid of pests. Aphids, for example, can usually be controlled simply by squashing them with your fingers.

Michael Chinery

Re-cycling the empties: this lacewing larva, pictured with its jaws plunged into an aphid, camouflages itself by piling the empty skins of its victims on its back.

Cultural control

Adjusting the way you grow things, or even what you grow, can make your garden less attractive to pests. Most weeds, for example, can be eliminated by spreading a layer of chipped bark or compost over the garden. You can try growing red cabbage instead of the traditional green varieties: this may not deter the cabbage white caterpillars, but at least you can see them more easily and remove them before they do the damage!

Companion planting or inter-planting is often used to reduce damage by pests. Planting onions and carrots close together works well because the smell of the carrots deters or confuses the damaging onion-fly, and the smell of the onions discourages the carrot-fly. Roses or other flowers planted at the ends of vegetable rows attract hover-flies, which may lay eggs on aphid-infested crops. Some hover-fly larvae can demolish the aphids at a rate of one every minute!

Doing nothing and allowing nature’s web to keep the pests in check is probably the best method of all. Surely losing a few plants to beetles and caterpillars is a price well worth paying for a garden which is teeming with wildlife and with no risk of poisoning yourself or your family?

BIOLOGICAL CONTROL

Biological control, which uses natural enemies to keep pests in check, can be wonderfully effective. Introducing ladybirds and their larvae to your garden, for example, can wipe out an infestation of aphids in days. A single ladybird larva may eat 500 aphids in its three-week development. Green lacewings (see here for stockists) do a good job on summer populations of aphids, and are useful in greenhouses throughout the year.

Biological control of slugs, which are surely at the top of most gardeners’ hit-lists, can now be achieved simply by using a minute parasitic worm called Plasmarhabditis hermaphrodita. Available through good garden centres and other suppliers (see here), the worms seek out slugs and bore their way in. They multiply rapidly and the slugs literally explode, releasing another generation of worms to carry on the work. It is unlikely that the worms will move out into surrounding areas in the numbers required for slug control, so the hedgehog population will not go hungry.

Snails can be kept in check by song thrushes as long as you have sufficient anvils on which the birds can break the shells. If you have no concrete paths or rockery stones, lay a few bricks or large stones around the garden and listen for the tapping as the birds get to work.

Colin Varndell

Song thrush

Michael Chinery

Roses are often planted in vineyards. Hover-flies, which are attracted to the flowers, lay their eggs on the surrounding vines, where their grubs attack harmful aphids and other pests.

Planning your garden

An abandoned garden soon becomes clothed with nettles, brambles and other invasive plants. Birds and some other animals may appreciate such a wilderness, but your neighbours certainly will not. Diversity is also lost. Good wildlife gardens are planned, not abandoned.

A wilderness and a wildlife garden are not the same! A wilderness, often defined as a wild and confused mass of vegetation, certainly does not exhibit the variety at the heart of a wildlife garden. It may have advantages for some animals, including the hedgehog and various birds, and there may be short-term advantages for some insects but, if left untouched, the wilderness will succumb to the processes of natural succession and will turn into woodland in 20 years or so. If you want a garden wilderness, restrict it to a particular area and be prepared to tame it occasionally. And plan the rest of your wildlife garden carefully to make the best use of the available space.

Colin Varndell

A planned garden does not have to be very formal. The position of this garden pond was actually carefully planned, but the plantlife gives it a wonderfully wild and natural appearance.

The wildlife garden cannot be ideal for everything; it has to be a compromise. However, by growing lots of different plants you can create wonderful wildlife homes and still have some room for your favourite flowers and vegetables. And you can do this even in a small garden.

Plan it on paper

Decide what features you want to include, which, in practice, usually means what you have room for, and then measure your garden carefully so that you can draw an accurate scale plan. Your aim should be to have the flower beds and other more formal or tidier parts of your garden near to the house and let them grade into the wilder-looking areas further away. This will give the whole garden a natural look and still allow you to control its structure. Remember that the pond should be in an open spot and that bird tables should be positioned where you can watch them in comfort.

When you have decided where everything is to go, you can start thinking about the plants. The soil will influence what you can grow, so have a look at neighbouring gardens and the surrounding countryside to determine which plants do well in the area. You can also use the Internet to find out which members of your local flora are worth planting in your garden (see here). Although native species are best (see here), you don’t have to ignore exotic species altogether. They lend superb colour to the garden and can provide just as much shelter for wildlife as our native species. Many also provide seasonal nectar and fruit.

Trees and hedges

Woodland margins are among the richest of all wild habitats, and an excellent way to reproduce them in your garden is to plant a hedge with a wavy margin, preferably on either the northern or the eastern boundary, or both, as this will help provide protection from cold winds without casting too much shade. It will also enable you to grow primroses, foxgloves and many other sun-loving flowers at the base. Include as many different shrubs in your hedge as you can, as this will increase its attractiveness to both birds and insects (see here). A ‘mini-spinney’, with three or four small trees, is another excellent way to mimic the woodland edge.

Ideally, the hedge should be on your northern boundary, but remember your neighbours: shelter for you might mean shade for them. Birch is a good tree in such a situation because it does not cast deep shade. It also supports over 200 insect species in Britain, and several small birds enjoy its seeds in the autumn. Alder and hawthorn are nearly as effective in this respect. Rowan, bird cherry, hazel and crab apple are other good trees for this situation, or you could try planting a cultivated apple; even a good cooker can support plenty of wildlife, from tiny insects to collared doves, and you can also enjoy the fruit yourself.

Rolando Ugolini

Among the most beautiful of all our spring flowers, the primrose graces the bottoms of many garden hedgerows. Look out for the furry bee-fly plumbing the flowers for nectar with its long, rigid tongue.

Rolando Ugolini

Just a few small trees on the edge of the garden can provide food and shelter for many creatures normally found in a woodland habitat, especially if the herbage is left uncut until autumn.

Michael Chinery

Bird cherry is an excellent tree for the wild garden. It can reach a height of 15m (45ft), but it does not cast a dense shade and it is easily kept in check by regular trimming. Laden with heavily-scented flowers in spring, the bird cherry bears shiny black fruits later in the year.

Garden paths

These can be made of brick or concrete, or paving slabs laid as stepping stones across the lawn or through the flower beds. For a more natural look, however, you can use chipped bark laid over a firmly-rolled base and retained by a kerb of rustic poles. You can disguise the edge a little by planting violets and bugle here and there and allowing them to tumble over the poles. Some interesting fungi may well spring up on the poles and on the chippings.

Michael Chinery

Bugle makes a colourful edging to a garden path in the spring. The wild form and the various cultivars are equally attractive to bees.

Try to make the paths curve through the garden so that you get new views at every turn and possibly a feeling that you are in a larger area. However, if you cannot do this, you can create an illusion of distance on a straight path by using large chips near the house and smaller ones further away. If your path is on a slope, put in some wooden steps here and there. Old railway sleepers are ideal, and if you drill a few holes in them you will probably attract various solitary bees (see here). You can also drill holes for them in the path edging.

Pergolas

Although pergolas tend to be associated mainly with formal gardens, they can actually be wonderful wildlife centres. Clothed with roses or honeysuckle in summer, they attract lots of insects and insect-eating birds, and some birds will readily nest in the dense climbers. You can make pergolas work for you in the winter as well by hanging an assortment of bird feeders on them. The sturdy uprights also make good supports for nest-boxes, but it is as well to move the feeders to another site before the nesting season begins: hordes of birds squabbling over a nearby bag of peanuts are not likely to make your nest-boxes desirable residences. Solitary bees and wasps will also appreciate your pergola if you drill a few small holes in the woodwork.

Michael Chinery

Pergolas allowed to become overgrown with an assortment of creepers can be superb for garden birds.

A wildlife meadow

In the middle of the twentieth century, flower-rich meadows could be found in many parts of Britain, but less than two per cent of the meadows that delighted us in the 1940s survive today. Unfortunately, we cannot put them back, but every little helps and a flowery lawn in your garden is a good start.

Put your mower away for a few weeks and you will certainly get some new flowers on your lawn, but unless your garden is on a chalk or limestone slope you probably will not grow much more than dandelions and daisies initially. To create a good flower-rich habitat you will have to introduce most of the flowers.

Scattering seeds into an existing lawn is not likely to achieve very much because the grasses will swamp the young seedlings, although you can increase their chances by removing the turf from small areas before sowing. Therefore a better way is to stick established plants into your lawn, but even then they are likely to be overshadowed. The best approach of all is to strip all the turf and much of the top-soil away and then re-seed the ground with a mixture of grass and flower seeds. Make sure that the grass mixture does not include rye grass, which is too vigorous for a wildflower meadow.

Michael Chinery

Abandon your mower and you will soon acquire a grassland jungle similar to this, where field mouse-ear and bird’s-foot trefoil are flowering below the thistles and tall flower-heads of the grasses.

Do not be tempted to sow too many species in a new lawn: four or five grasses and half a dozen flower species are plenty. Spread the grass seeds evenly over the area, but for a natural appearance the flower seeds should be sown in drifts of just two or three species. Never add any fertilizer to your meadow – this will merely encourage the grasses to grow and overshadow the other plants.

Choose your species

The chart opposite lists some of the most useful and attractive flowers for your meadow, but what you can grow successfully obviously depends on the soil. One sure way to find out what might be best for you is to have a good look at the surrounding countryside, including the roadside verges. Flowers that grow well there are likely to do well in your meadow. You can collect the seeds by shaking the ripe seed-heads into paper bags, but never dig up the wild plants. If you have access to the Internet you can call up a website that allows you to see a list of all the plants growing in your area just by inserting the first half of your postcode (see here). It also tells you whether the plants are garden-worthy and lists the suppliers of native plant seeds. It is very important always to use native seeds; foreign seeds, even if they are of the same species, may be adapted to different conditions and their genes may contaminate and damage our native flora.

Drifts of delicate pink cuckoo flowers adorn many areas of damp grassland in the spring, and they are often accompanied by bright yellow cowslips.

Sow your seeds in the autumn, but do not expect a mass of colour in the first summer – many seeds will not even germinate until the spring, and the young plants need a full season’s growth before they are ready to flower.

Management is vital

Meadows were originally created by grazing and/or cutting, so you need to cut your flower meadow at least once a year. Use a scythe or a strimmer if possible, but if you have to use a mower make sure that the blades are not set too low.

Cut in late summer or autumn for a good display of spring flowers, such as cuckoo flower, cowslip, fritillary, bugle and dandelion.

Cut in spring and autumn for summer colour from the likes of knapweed, lady’s bedstraw, scabious, meadow cranesbill and ox-eye daisy.

Always leave the cut vegetation on the ground for a day or two to allow any seeds to fall, but then make sure you clear it all away because a good flower meadow depends on poor soil fertility.

If you are lucky enough to have a large meadow area, you can mow paths through it more frequently so that you can enjoy the flowers at close quarters.

An area of long grass can look untidy even if it is full of flowers, so it is a good plan to mow the edge to stop the grass from tumbling on to your path or drive. You might like to mow the area nearest to the house as well and allow it to merge gradually into the longer grass, much as a golf course fairway grades into the rough.

If you live in open countryside, you could even construct a ha-ha boundary (a sunken fence or ditch) so that your wild meadow appears to drift off into the surrounding fields.

MEADOW PLANTS

These native plants are suitable for you to plant in your wildlife meadow:

• Bladder campion | • Cowslip
• Cuckoo flower* | • Field scabious
• Greater knapweed | • Ox-eye daisy
• Meadow cranesbill | • Ragged robin*
• Self heal | • Yarrow

Plants marked * will thrive in damp areas.

The meadow cranesbill is one of the most beautiful of our grassland species. It does best on lime-rich soils, where its bright violet-blue flowers can be seen throughout the summer.

The gardens hedge

Most houses come complete with some sort of boundary feature – a hedge or a wall if you are lucky, but more often a relatively barren wooden fence. Although walls and fences can support a limited range of plant and animal life, a mature hedgerow is a thriving community, teeming with insects and other animals. At the same time it can give you privacy and protect your garden from the wind.

You could consider enriching your garden by replacing your fence with a hedge, but only if the neighbours agree! Alternatively, you could plant a low hedge inside your boundary or instal one as the garden equivalent of a room-divider – separating your vegetables from your flower beds perhaps. Hedges are very cheap to create, although they do need more maintenance than walls and fences.

Michael Chinery

The nests of caterpillars of the small eggar moth were once common on roadside hawthorn hedges, but mechanical trimming in summer has caused the species to become rare. Garden hedges may be its salvation.

Michael Chinery

Although it is very conspicuous when viewed on a bare twig, the 10cm (4in) caterpillar of the privet hawkmoth is surprisingly hard to spot in a privet hedge.

What to plant

Although exotic species may bear plenty of tasty berries for the birds, they do not support many insects (see here), so native shrubs are best. Hawthorn is good as it grows quickly, even from cuttings, and it is eaten by more than 150 insect species in Britain alone. Blackthorn, field maple, spindle, dogwood, buckthorn, alder buckthorn and guelder rose are also good. You can encourage honeysuckle, brambles and wild roses to scramble over the hedge. In fact, the more species you can incorporate, the better.

The animal residents

A hedge is both a home and larder for numerous garden animals.

Birds Song thrushes, blackbirds, greenfinches, dunnocks and long-tailed tits all nest in garden hedges. The last two are happy to nest among slender twigs, but the others like to build in a stout fork and are most likely to nest in older hedges. Many more birds find food among the branches.

Mammals Hedgehogs, shrews, mice and voles all forage in the leaf litter at the base of the hedge. Stoats and weasels – Europe’s smallest carnivores – may also hunt there.

Michael Chinery

Rolando Ugolini

The cultivated Prunus shrubs which make up this superb garden hedge are just as good for nesting birds as the wild shrubs.

Insects These abound in the hedgerow and they play a vital role in feeding the local bird population. However, you will need a keen eye to spot the twig-like caterpillars of the geometrid moths, such as the swallowtailed moth and some of the thorn moths. The hairy and colourful caterpillars of the vapourer, grey dagger and yellowtail moths are much easier to find. Most birds will avoid these hairy caterpillars because the hairs of some species can cause severe irritation. Spiders thrive on the insect life, although we tend not to notice these fascinating small garden creatures until the autumn when their webs are more visible (see here).

GARDEN PROJECT – PLANTING A HEDGE FOR WILDLIFE

A hedge is best planted in the winter, and all the plants should be pruned to no more than about 30cm (12in) in height after planting them to encourage the growth of interlocking shoots. Don’t be too eager with your secateurs after that. A hedge does need to be trimmed from time to time, but if you want a really good wildlife hedge then you should do this only once every two years.

By doing this, you will always have some one-year-old wood on which many of the shrubs carry their flowers. It is a good plan to trim half the hedge one winter and the other half the next. Try to keep your hedge narrower at the top than at the bottom; otherwise the ground flora may become shaded out and some of the lower branches may die back and leave gaps.

Wildlife walls

Although, as a home for wildlife, a hedge beats a wall every time, there is still a place for a wall in a wildlife garden. This is particularly true on sloping ground, where small walls, no more than a metre (three feet) or so high, can be used to create a very attractive terraced effect.

You don’t need to be an expert bricklayer; in fact, you don’t really need bricks at all. You can try building a dry stone wall, using one of the many traditional styles that are found in upland Britain. Always use local stone if possible, as this fits into the landscape so much better than alien material. You may be able to buy large stones from a local quarry or a nearby garden centre. Failing this, get hold of The Natural Stone Directory (see here) which will tell you where you can buy almost every kind of stone.

CONSERVATION TIP

Never be tempted to buy water-worn limestone, often sold as Westmorland stone. It should not be for sale anyway, as it comes from one of our rarest habitats – the much-damaged limestone pavements of northern Britain – which are now protected by law.

Michael Chinery

This section of a dry stone wall shows the large through stones which are used to tie the two faces of the wall together. The central cavity can be filled with soil or small stones.

A wildlife refuge

Because there is no mortar between the stones, except perhaps at the ends of the wall, the dry stone wall offers homes to a huge variety of animals: lizards bask and hunt on the wall by day, while toads hide in the cool recesses along with numerous spiders and beetles.

Bumblebees will also take up residence, and in the warmer parts of Europe they may be joined by the harmless little scorpion Euscorpius flavicaudis.

Michael Chinery

Red valerian is an attractive, although rather invasive, inhabitant of old walls. It attracts lots of butterflies and moths.

Michael Chinery

The scorpion Euscorpius flavicaudis inhabits old walls in southern Europe. You may see the pincers sticking out of a crevice.

Michael Chinery

The black redstart, uncommon in Britain but a common garden bird on the continent of Europe, regularly breeds in holes and crevices in old walls. Its nest is an untidy and none-too-secure pile of grass, which is lined with hair and feathers.

Wrens, black redstarts, great tits and pied wagtails are among the many birds that may find your wall to their liking.

The hedgehog is sure to find a snug retreat among the lower stones. And don’t forget yourself either: it is not difficult to incorporate a smooth stone slab in the wall so that you can sit comfortably and watch your garden guests.

Water your wall with a slurry of cow or horse dung after building it to encourage invasion by mosses and lichens, which then act as nurseries for ferns and other plants. It will soon become a home for wildlife.

GARDEN PROJECT – BUILDING A DRY STONE WALL

If your garden is flat, you can use low stone walls simply as decorative features or to create raised beds. Such beds are ideal for alpines and many other plants and, once built, they make gardening much easier as well! Old bricks can be used instead of stone, but you still do not need mortar. Dig out the wall base to a depth of one brick, making sure that it is fairly level and compacted down.

To retain a bed, the wall should be double thickness and no higher than four courses. Set each course of bricks on a mixture of sand and peat-free compost. Leave a few gaps between the bricks for lizards and other small creatures to get in, but otherwise the bricks in each course need to be in contact with each other.

You will not have to wait long for ferns and other plants to spring up naturally in the sand/compost mixture and bind the bricks firmly together, but you can speed things up by planting some yourself. You’ll find that houseleeks and stonecrops do very well on these walls. Remember that this wall is not for walking or climbing on!

Rolando Ugolini

This very simple low wall is made of old bricks which are laid double thickness and across each other to bind and strengthen the wall. Leave some small gaps in between.

The garden pond

If you have room to create only one semi-natural habitat in your garden, then I think it should be a garden pond. This is one of the richest of all habitats in terms of wildlife. As well as providing homes for frogs, newts, dragonflies and many other exciting creatures, it provides food, drink and bathing facilities for birds and assorted mammals. And all will give you, the gardener, a great deal of fun.

If you are really lucky your garden might already have a stream that you can dam to make a small pond. Local rocks can be used to form the dam, or you can utilize a tree trunk. Oak and elm are good for this as both timbers survive well under water. A height of about 50cm (20in) is fine for the dam. Be sure to consult the appropriate authorities if you want to create a larger pool because anything more than a small dam could interfere with water supplies further downstream.

Most of us have to create our ponds from scratch, but this is not difficult if there are strong people to do the digging. Pond plants and animals like plenty of sunshine, so don’t site your pond under trees. Apart from creating a lot of shade, they will drop their leaves into the water in the autumn and cause a lot of problems. If you compare a woodland pool with one in the open, you will be in no doubt that the latter is a much richer and more attractive habitat.

Acres Wild/Ian Smith

Surrounded by a rich variety of wild and cultivated marginal plants, including yellow irises and brilliant orange primulas, this pond will attract a wide range of insects and other wildlife, and there is enough open water to encourage frogs and dragonflies to come and lay their eggs.

Constructing the pond

Ponds dug in low-lying areas where the water table is close to the surface sometimes fill themselves, and you can’t ask for much more natural ponds than these. Otherwise you will have to line your pond.

Preformed fibreglass liner

If you decide on a preformed fibreglass liner, all you have to do is to buy one of the shape and size that you want, dig a similarly-shaped hole, and drop the liner into it (see). A morning’s work can give you a very attractive pond!

Acres Wild

Acres Wild/Ian Smith

This cross-section of a pre-formed fibreglass pond shows the correct level for a shelf for marginal plants. The surrounding paving stones must be firmly cemented into place and should overhang the edge sufficiently to conceal the edges of the pond liner. Frogs may shelter under these overhangs, but you need to provide one or more stepping stones so that the animals can get out of the pond.

Acres Wild/Ian Smith

1 Mark the position of the pond with pegs and string or a line of sand for irregular shapes.

Acres Wild/Ian Smith

2 The excavation must match the profile of the unit. Measure all depths carefully from the rim.

Acres Wild/Ian Smith

3 Allow for installation of the pool and back-filling by digging out a larger hole than marked.

Acres Wild/Ian Smith

4 After removing all stones, make sure that the ground is compacted down.

Acres Wild/Ian Smith

5 Smooth the sides and spread a 5cm (2in) protective layer of sand on the base and sides.

Acres Wild/Ian Smith

6 Press the unit gently until level, then part-fill with water and back-fill with sifted soil or sand.

Flexible liners

These liners allow you to have a pond of virtually any shape you like. You can use heavy-duty black polythene, but butyl rubber is a better material and, although considerably more expensive, it is likely to last much longer. Whatever you get, make sure it has at least a ten-year guarantee.

Calculating the liner size

You can calculate the required liner size by measuring the maximum length and breadth of the pond, adding twice the maximum depth to each dimension, and then adding a further 50cm (20in) to each to allow for sufficient overlap at the pond’s margins. Although you can choose whatever shape you like, butyl rubber liners are usually rectangular, so long, narrow ponds tend to be rather wasteful of this lining material.

WHICH WATER SOURCE?

The tap is usually the only source of water for the pond. The high mineral content of tap water may encourage the algae to multiply rapidly and turn the water green in the summer, but this will not harm the wildlife of the pond and the algae will gradually dwindle as they use up the minerals. The best thing, if you are planning to have a pond, is to store up a supply of rain water ready for filling it. Always use rain water to top up your pond in the summer: an adaptor fitted to a drainpipe can be used to divert water into a hose leading to the pond.

Acres Wild

A) Moisture-loving shrubs, such as guelder rose and alder buckthorn, can be planted around the pond, but do not let them shade the water

B) Free-floating plants, such as frogbit, provide shade for many small animals

C) The floating leaves of yellow water lily and similar plants make good landing pads for dragonflies

D) Large stones breaking the surface provide perches for drinking birds and basking spots for frogs

E) A sloping ‘beach’ makes it easy for animals to get in and out of the pond

F) Wetland plants, such as marsh marigold, provide food and shelter for insects and many other small creatures

G) The flexible liner can be covered with fine soil here and there to allow plants to root naturally

H) Submerged plants, such as curled pondweed and water milfoil, maintain oxygen levels

I) The jetty can be supported on building blocks, but these should be set on rubber or plastic pads to protect the liner

J) Native marginal plants, such as arrowhead and flowering rush, can be planted in the swampy area at the edge. They give a natural effect and provide cover for many animals

PROTECT YOUR LINER

Before installing the liner, remove any sharp stones that you can see and then line the hole with soft sand to protect the liner. You can also buy polyester matting specifically made for this purpose. Alternatively, you can use old plastic bags, as used for potting compost, but an old carpet is even better.

Acres Wild/Ian Smith

1 Decide on the shape and size of your pond and mark it out with a rope or a hose-pipe before you begin digging. Make the pond as big as you can, but ensure that you can get a liner of a suitable size before you start work!

Acres Wild/Ian Smith

2 Make sure that the edges of the pond are perfectly level, otherwise the liner will be exposed in some places. The central area should be at least 50cm (20in) deep to ensure that the whole pond does not freeze solid in a hard winter.

Acres Wild/Ian Smith

3 It is best to start digging in the centre and then slope the bottom gently up to the surface. Leave a flat shelf about 15cm (6in) below the final water surface on one side, so you can grow marginal plants there in pots (see here).

Acres Wild/Ian Smith

4 It’s now time to install the liner by spreading it over the hole and pushing it roughly into position. Weight the edges down with something heavy, ensuring that there is at least 25cm (10in) overlap all round the margin. Then you can start adding the water. As it runs in, the weight of the water stretches the liner and moulds it to the shape of the hole.

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