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A wildlife-friendly garden can be a joy to behold and makes much better use of your outdoor space. From tiny critters to magical visitors like deer, a garden that appeals to animals can be a wonderful thing. However, rather than rewilding and letting it grow out, you can still enjoy your garden alongside the animals without sacrificing style and comfort. So what do you need to do? From “drifting” with nectar-rich flowers to using organic products, here are some suggestions.
Manage the Lawn Edges
Most people think the entire lawn needs to be overgrown to attract more wildlife. However, this isn’t really true, and you can attract a lot of animals and bugs by allowing the edges to flourish a bit more than usual. Using a string trimmer, you can carefully work the edges of the lawn to leave the grown-out edging. Then you can simply mow the rest of the lawn as you usually would. This is an excellent compromise between rewilding and an emerald green space.
Drifting for a Wildlife-Friendly Garden
Flowers are among the most popular plants in a modern garden, and in the UK alone, over 26 million homeowners grow them in their yards. However, as good as they look, flowers can serve a purpose when attracting more wildlife through drifting for better results than rewilding:
- Begin by planting nectar-rich flowers in groups rather than sporadically and randomly.
- This acts as a refuelling station that will attract pollinators such as bees en masse.
- Some of the best flowers for drifting include dahlias and asters for bees and butterflies.
Build and Grow Living Walls
There’s a ton of vertical space in most gardens, and it can be used to attract more wildlife, saving your personal garden floor space in the process. Climbing plants like ivy and honeysuckle will make their way up fences and walls when planted close by. These are amazing for bugs and bees, and provide nesting sites for birds. In addition, they can transform the look of any modern garden space from something too clean and clinical to a natural-looking haven.
Create Small Ponds with Containers
Ponds are wonderful additions to gardens, especially when they can contain fish such as koi and come with a water feature. However, this can be expensive and might actually require major disruption to a much-loved animal habitat in your garden. So what can you do? If you have a large container, you can create a pond in a pot that attracts more wildlife. Something like an old sin will attract bathing birds, and a water butt with a small dish is a watering hole for hedgehogs.
Building Bug Hotels for a Wildlife-Friendly Garden
A survey in the UK found that around 60% of kids love getting their hands dirty in the garden, and there are tons of things they can do. However, building a bug hotel is one of the most eco-friendly gardening practices to implement at home so that the kids can appreciate nature.
Begin with a sturdy framework
It helps to choose a flat and firm spot in the garden that won’t be easily knocked over and use bricks, stones and wood to build a foundation about three pallets high for a bug mansion.
Pack it with natural materials
Bugs love to hide in small spaces, and there are natural materials that appeal to them. For example, bees love bamboo. But you can also use leaves, bark and pine cones for other bugs.
Add a waterproof roof
It is vital that your bug hotel is kept dry to protect the six-legged residents. So cover the top of the bug hotel with slate, tiles or even bark to make sure the critters stay dry and safe.
Use Hedges for Boundaries
People tend to make modern gardens more stylish with clean lines and aesthetics. While this is appealing to you as a homeowner, fencing, railings and solid boundaries don’t do much for animals and bugs. If you want your garden to appeal more to the wildlife in the area than potential home buyers in the future, you will need to make some changes. Hedge boundaries of holly, hawthorn and blackthorn are better as nesting sites and green corridors for little critters.
Embrace the Power of Logs
One of the easiest but most powerful ways of attracting more wildlife to your garden is by simply adding some log piles, and you don’t even have to see them. Hidden behind shrubs and borders, log piles are natural attractors of beneficial bugs like bees and small animals. However, they also stay damp, which means they appeal to a broader spectrum of animals that includes toads and frogs, and ground beetles, all while remaining out of sight in your manicured yard.
Switch to Organics for a Wildlife-Friendly Garden
Most gardeners today understand the danger that chemicals pose to wildlife, and around 80% have now switched to organic products. Instead of dangerous chemicals, you can also change the product you use in your garden to encourage more wildlife instead of killing everything:
- Avoid pesticides and fertilisers as they can be dangerous to beneficial insects.
- Instead, apply organic mulch and compost to the top layers for water retention.
- This also helps to suppress weeds, reducing the need to use more chemicals.
Add Some Bird Feeding Stations
One of the greatest joys of a garden is watching small animals such as birds pass through and enjoy themselves. Bird feeding stations are a great way to attract migrating and local species alike, which makes for some great memories and stunning photos. However, you may need to create a simple bird feeder before your winged buddies will stop by. Otherwise, trying to spot birds from your garden can be a hit-and-miss game, and they definitely won’t stick around.
Summary
Strimming the lawn edges and leaving them overgrown is an easy way to create a wildlife-friendly garden without the hassle of rewilding. You can also build bug hotels to encourage minibeasts to visit, and there’s nothing like a feeding station for our feathered friends.
