COUNTRYSIDE, WILDLIFE & FARMING
life
Wildlife in your
garden
- creating space for small creatures
OK, spring has arrived and you may feel the
time is ripe for getting to grips with your
garden. All around you, however, smaller
occupants of the garden are trying frantically
to find food, avoid being something else’s
lunch or trying to reproduce. As well as
being incredibly interesting in themselves,
many are in fact rather spectacular,
invertebrates have a key role in every aspect
of garden life. Invertebrates pollinate
flowers, recycle nutrients by breaking down
dead plant material which in turn improves
the soil they keep populations of other
invertebrates in natural balance. In addition
to all of these important functions they are
the basis of a food web that ultimately feeds
the majority of our garden birdlife. All those
tits and sparrows that you have diligently fed
throughout the winter raise their young on a
diet of small creatures. The message is clear,
if you want your garden to teem with life,
look after it’s smallest occupants.
Article by Abi Jarvis
need to be left for a minimum of seven
years. Log piles are best if built with native
hardwood such as oak, birch or ash.
Install a pond in the autumn. Ponds
bring a completely different dimension to
a garden. Dragonflies and damsel flies will
colonise a well built pond within the first
year and it will provide an additional habitat
a vast range of creatures. If you already have
a pond try to keep summer management to
a minimum. If you do need to extract weed
leave it lying beside the pond for a day or
two to allow its inhabitants to return to the
water.
Eaglehead
Plant lots of nectar sources. Butterflies,
moths and bees require nectar sources
throughout the summer so try to plant
flowers that will provide a continuous supply
from early summer to late autumn.
Find a corner for nettles. A patch of
nettles particularly if it is in a sunny spot
provides the ideal habitat for the caterpillars
of the peacock and small tortoiseshell
butterflies. If you have the room, a patch of
brambles provides flowers in the summer
and berries in the autumn both excellent
sources of food.
Learn to love wasps. Despite their role
as the pantomime villain of the garden,
wasps provide a valuable service. They
Photo Above: Garden by David Kilbey
The great thing about invertebrates is that
small changes to your garden can greatly
improve the conditions for them to thrive.
Below are 12 easy tips to benefit bugs:
Create a log pile. Select a quiet area of
you garden and place logs in an irregular
pile. Log piles are great for beetles, slugs,
centipedes and millipedes. They also provide
over wintering and hunting habitats for
newts, so a log pile by a pond is particularly
beneficial. Taking it a step further large
partially buried wood may provide a home
for the Lesser Stag beetle, the wood will
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Water Vole by Chris Bean
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