So, you’ve decided you want to make your garden more wildlife friendly; perhaps your keen to listen to birdsong in the morning or want to spot more butterflies in the summer? Well, the good news is it’s actually not that hard to bring wildlife back into your garden, and you may find that once you get the ball rolling all manner of species start to appear! So, today’s post is all about the different ideas you can introduce to your garden to bring the wildlife to you!
1 Start a compost heap!
Difficulty: Easy
Time consuming: A few minutes a week
Cost: £0 (dependent on whether you buy a dedicated compost bin or not)
Starting a compost heap in your garden using natural food waste is a great way to help recirculate nutrients into the soil and provide a food source for insects. It is also a great way to get started making your own compost which you could then use on flower beds or vegetables elsewhere in the garden.
2 Bird Feeders and Bird Nests!
Difficulty: Very easy to set up and maintain
Time consuming: After set-up maybe 5 or so minutes every fortnight for cleaning and refilling.
Cost: Basic feeder and seed can be purchased for less than £10- although seed purchases may become a regular expense depending on how hungry the birds are! A good quality nest box will be around £10-£30 dependant on design.
A sure fire way to bring birds to you is by setting up a bird feeder or nest box! Now you don’t need to go over the top with this if you are just getting started- one feeder with some simple sunflower seeds is sure to bring in some birds; but if you take the saying Go big or Go home to heart than you might want to check out this other post and vlog that goes through setting up a feeding station, different types of bird seed and different options available as to where to purchase equipment!
3 Bug Boxes!
Difficulty: Very easy to set up and maintain
Time consuming: Very quick set up and little maintenance required
Cost: You can make your own bug box from materials around your house or buy one pre-made for around £10-£20!
A bug box is a great way to get children interested in wildlife as its something you can build yourself at home with various around the house materials, or you can buy a premade one relatively easily. These boxes are a great way to support the little guys in your garden and you can play host to a range of insects and bugs such as woodlouse, spiders, millipedes, and solitary bees.
4 Mini Pond!
Difficulty: Set up is trickier than previous suggestions
Time consuming: Set up and maintenance can be time consuming
Cost: Depending on what you already have at home, set up is relatively cheap
Adding a water source or mini pond to your garden is a great way to help out wildlife in the warmer months and attract a wider range of species such as amphibians, dragonflies and other insects to your back garden. The easiest set up for a mini pond would be to sink a washing up bowl or similar sized container into the ground and add a few well places plants and other cover to ensure plenty of habitat.
5 Wildflower meadows!
Difficulty: Dependent on planting location, this one might be trickier
Time consuming: Dependent on location and garden this one might take a while to plant out and annual maintenance will be required
Cost: Wildflower seeds can be purchased relatively cheaply (£5 or less) depending on how large an area you want to cover.
This one will appeal to all the flower lovers out there and is a great way to attract bees and butterflies to your garden. You can section off an area of garden for a mini meadow or plant mini pot meadows in large flower pots. This idea is also a great way to add a pop of colour to your garden in the summer with a beautiful mini meadow. If you want to learn a bit more about wildflower meadows, you can check out this post about the one I planted last year!
6 Let it Grow!
Difficulty: Easy
Time consuming: Not at all
Cost: £0
The absolute easiest way to attract more wildlife to your garden is to simply ‘let it grow’ (The Lorax appears now). By this I mean let the grass grow taller in the summer months and don’t go crazy on the maintenance and weeding because even though we might consider a plant ‘a weed’ the thousands of insects your garden would disagree!
7 Stick to natural chemicals!
Difficulty: Easy
Time consuming: Not at all
Cost: £0
Another super easy way to help attract wildlife to your garden is to not use/or stop the use of harsh chemicals such as pesticides, and weed killers, as well as peat and other garden chemicals. Although these may help to keep pests of your vegetables, they are also allowing dangerous chemicals to enter the soil and food chain- which is not good for anyone!
