Would you like to make your garden more wildlife friendly?  Here are ten top tips for attracting wildlife to your garden:

1. Relax! Take time to look at what is around you and you will find you are less inclined to tidy areas beneath hedges, or worry too much about trimming the lawn every few days. Enjoy your garden!

2. Go organic. If you avoid the use of pesticides in the garden, you will immediately increase the numbers of insects visiting. This in turn will bring in insect eating birds such as robins, wrens, blackbirds and thrushes, as well as increase numbers of bees, butterflies and all manner of beneficial insects.

3. Plant some wildflowers. Even a red campion tucked under the hedge, or purple loosestrife in the pond edge will increase the numbers of insects visiting your garden, and all other wildlife associated with these native wildflowers will benefit.

4. Make a nectar border. Choose carefully, some good nectar plants, using information from a wildlife gardening book (several are recommended at the end of this web site). Do not rely on information or advice from your local garden centre, but go straight to the experts! The more nectar/pollen producing plants you have, the better your garden will be for wildlife.

5. Plant a tree. If you have room for a native tree, such as a silver birch or rowan, so much the better, but if not try something like an ornamental crab apple. You will be amazed at how birds will come to the garden if there is a tree to provide them with perching and roosting places, and food in the form of seeds and fruit.

6. Plant a hedge. A native hedge in the garden, composed of a good mixture of berry bearing, spiky shrubs such as hawthorn and blackthorn, together with dogwood, guelder rose, hazel, spindle… the list goes on and on. Add some wild roses and honeysuckle and recreate a country hedge. Again the birds will flock to an area like this, and reward you by nesting there safely amongst all those spiky plants.

7. Make a meadow. This is the best way to encourage some of the smaller butterflies into the garden – the ones that don’t take nectar from Buddleia. Many of our native butterfly species lay their eggs on grasses, and having long grass with meadow flowers in the garden is a good way of providing breeding places for meadow browns, gatekeepers, ringlets, speckled woods and the skippers. Other wildlife will also benefit, especially other insects and small mammals.

8. Make a wildlife pond. Any water in the garden is better than none at all. Even an upturned dustbin lid with fresh water will encourage birds to drink and bathe, but a proper wildlife pond with gently sloping edges and wild flowers will be a delight for you and your wildlife visitors. Frogs, toads, newts, mammals, birds, and dragonflies will all benefit.

9. Put up a nest box. Creating artificial places in the garden to encourage wildlife is very worthwhile, so a nest box for birds, a bat box or even a few logs in a cool place will help.

10. Be tolerant!! You may well find that things visit you, or ‘weeds’ arrive and you are not keen on them! But remember that spiders attract wrens, and dandelions provide lovely seeds for goldfinches and greenfinches. Once you welcome all native wildlife into the garden, and a balance is achieved, you will find that you are as fascinated by the creepy crawlies as the colourful birds and butterflies.

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