The garden is one of the last bastions of biodiversity. With the loss of habitats due to intensive farming, many birds, insects and plants rely on gardens as a source of food and shelter.
Wildlife Friendly Lawns
Pristine, green baize lawn? Feed and weed spray? Most people do. ‘Weeds’ are wildflowers and a biodiverse lawn with many different species including dandelions, daisies and other species still looks green from a distance and can be a spectacle of blooms, humming with the buzz of bees. Leave at least part of the lawn to nature. For an interesting effect, alter the length of time between cuts. A sudden bloom of daisies or dandelions caused by leaving the mowing for a few weeks looks stunning. Try planting some wildflower plug plants in the lawn. Leave mowing until after the flowers have bloomed and set seed, at the end of June for a Spring meadow or at the end of August for a summer blooming meadow. The Landlife Trust is a good source of information about this. It will encourage more birds and insects into the garden.
Hedges for Wildlife
Providing shelter and nesting for different species is essential. Hedges are excellent for cover, even the much maligned leylandii. Species that have berries and fruits to give extra food supplies in the winter are doubly valuable. Many people cut all their hedges at once. Try alternating cutting years and leave some hedges uncut. This will leave more fruits available. Always time cutting outside the nesting season to give the birds peace and leave some berries and fruit on for them in winter.
Butterfly Gardening
For every fluttering butterfly, there is a wriggling, hungry caterpillar. Remember to leave some plants that are good food sources for larvae. Nettles, brambles and even rosebay willowherb are all good sources of food for caterpillars.
Providing Habitat in the Garden
A tidy garden offers little refuge for animals and insects that hibernate. Newts, ladybirds and many others require shelter through the winter. A good way to provide this is to leave the stems of herbaceous perennials and the seed heads on over winter. They can look a little untidy, but can also be beautiful through the winter catching the sun and frost. Ladybirds often nestle in seed heads or in the hollow stems of plants like fennel. The clumps of vegetation left overwinter can be several degrees warmer and will provide a haven for hibernating creatures. Resist cutting it all back too soon as many species can be caught out by a late frost.
Allow a few dead things here and there. Branches, tree stumps, old cardboard or corrugated iron provide excellent habitats. Log piles are good for insects and act as ‘beetle banks’. Slow worms like to live under old bits of cardboard or metal and piles of old bricks or rubble can be excellent newt habitat.
Wildlife Friendly Vegetable Gardening
The conflict between gardening and nature really becomes an issue when growing vegetables, wanting to be able to eat nice, tasty, clean leaves when everything else does too. To minimise crop damage, plant a variety of plants in the garden. This encourages biodiversity and will give pests a choice of plants to eat.
Companion planting sacrificial plants is a good way of saving a crop. Nasturtiums attract cabbage white butterflies and if planted near a lettuce crop, the caterpillars will enjoy the nasturtiums rather than lunch. Nasturtiums are tasty in their own right, put the leaves in salads and use the flowers as peppery garnish. Marigolds are also a useful companion plant.
A background level of pests is a good thing – they are part of the food chain and a supply of food for other birds and insects. Encourage predatory thrushes and other birds into the garden with nest boxes, cover, winter food and water. Invest in some biological pest control if necessary. For example, if slugs are a particular problem, purchase nematodes which will prey on the slugs.
Crop rotation also reduces pests. Importantly, a well fed, healthy plant is more resistant to disease and pest attack. Having good soil is a natural defense. Making compost and adding it to the garden is a sustainable way to improve the soil texture, drainage and fertility. Avoid overwatering too – this encourages the production of water shoots that are sappy and extremely tasty to bugs, not good strong growth.
With all this, the garden should teem with life and although the neighbours may grumble that it looks a little untidy through the winter, there will be far more colour and movement in the summer months to more than compensate.
Lara Hurley - Lara Hurley has a broad knowledge of all aspects of horticulture and the landscape industry, an interest in garden design, sculpture and ...
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