If you want to add wildlife to your garden but think it’ll be an enormous and expensive project, you need to explore our top 5 tips for attracting wildlife into your garden below. With just a few minor changes, you can attract a wealth of wildlife to your garden.
The Correct Flowers, Shrubs, and Trees
Bees and other insects are responsible for fertilisation, and they need the pollen from flowers to get the job done. However, you need to make sure the flowers in your garden supply enough pollen to last the season. Typically, you should steer clear of those with double or blowsy flowers known as highly-bred cultivators.
The best flowers will release pollen from spring to autumn, the Mahonia and Crocus. Whereas, Ivy and the Michaelmas daisy will provide more than enough food to get through early winter because they bloom late.
Alongside your range of flowers, you should include different climbers, shrubs, and plants in your garden. Bushes, shrubs and trees don’t only provide food, they act as a great means of shelter for many species. Typically, the larger you can go with your trees, the better they’ll be for the wildlife.
If you want to include blossoming shrubs and trees full of berries, we recommend introducing crab apple, rowan, hawthorn, elder, and blackthorn. To add diversity into the mix, you can include non-native species to support different wildlife.
Building a Pond
If you don’t have a pond in your garden already, then you’re missing out on a fantastic wildlife opportunity. The best results will come from digging a pond, but using a plastic container of water will work just as well if you don’t have the space.
You can welcome fish to your pond. However, if you’re trying to attract wildlife, this isn’t the best course of action because they’ll simply eat everything. When installing your pond, you should make sure it’s sloped so that animals can easily find a way out. In most cases, amphibians like frogs tend to hang out in the shallows.
Caring for Old Trees
If you’ve got mature trees in your garden, you need to take care of them to safeguard the habitats living in your garden and the surrounding areas. To protect the trees, you should avoid damaging the bark, never hang things on it, and stay off the roots at all costs. When the dry months roll in, water matures trees just as you would with other plants and flowers.
Letting Grass Grow Longer
Most people mow their lawns to keep them looking crisp during spring and summer. However, if you’re willing to let it grow a little longer, you can provide suitable shelter for shrews, voles, wood mice, and other small mammals.
You don’t need to let your entire lawn grow wild. Instead, simply choose a small patch and allow it to grow a little wild. Instead of having it look like a patch of grass you’ve missed, you can scatter wildflower seeds to turn it into a picturesque meadow landscape.
Composting
You’re going to have plenty of garden waste to take care of, which is why we recommend composting it to recycle. When waste is broken down in a composter, it repurposes the nutrients and creates a fantastic feeding ground for worms, birds, beetles, hedgehogs, bats, toads, and several other small creatures. As well as this, the compost can be used as a source of food for plants.
To welcome more wildlife to your garden, simply make the small changes and additions outlined above. Our top 5 tips for attracting wildlife to your garden don’t require you to break the bank, but your efforts will be repaid with an increase in biodiversity which can be truly relaxing.