How to Encourage Wildlife Into Your Garden
Having a garden full of wildlife can really add to its atmosphere and create a sense of serenity. Many people believe it is a challenge to encourage wildlife to venture into your garden, but it’s much easier than you think! Follow these simple steps and your garden will be brimming with life in no time.
Grow the right flowers
Colourful and rich nectar-filled flowers are a great way to encourage insects and other critters to visit your garden. Flowers not only bring well-needed splashes of colour to our gardens but provide nectar, seeds and hiding spots for many small creatures. Furthermore, if you pick your flowers correctly (using a selection of herbaceous, biennial and annual flowering plants) you can have flowers in your garden all year round!
One additional benefit is that insects in your garden will help to pollinate your flowers and make them even more beautiful.
Create a compost heap
Compositing your garden and household waste helps all the plants and wildlife in your garden to thrive. This is because it speeds up the natural recycling of nutrients by harnessing native decomposer organisms. Compost heaps are easy to create, and you can add all your food waste to them instead of sending it to landfill! With each of us generating a staggering half-tonne of rubbish each year, composting is a great way to be more environmentally friendly.
It also improves the soil structure in your garden, helps to increase water retention and provides food for decomposers. Decomposers (such as fungi) specialise in breaking down plant material. They also attract birds and mammals.
Provide food for birds
Birds are some of the most sought-after garden creatures, and getting them to visit your garden is easy! During winter, supplementary food can mean the difference between life and death for many birds, so remembering to lay out some bird feed regularly will definitely encourage visits to your garden.
The best way to provide easily accessible food in your garden is to buy a bird table or bird feeder. Birds enjoy a range of foods, including peanuts, sunflower hearts, seeds, kitchen scraps and fat balls. Interestingly, birds will also eat a range of scraps including potatoes, fruit and pastry! Remember that birds also require a source of fresh drinking water to survive, so it’s worth keeping a small drinking bowl and topping it up regularly.
Add water
An easy way to attract wildlife to your garden is by adding a pond. Ensure that it’s placed somewhere where sunlight can reach it, and that there is at least one sloped side so creatures can easily get out.
Visit Landscape World
We hope we’ve given you some good ideas on how to create the ultimate wildlife-friendly garden! If you’re looking for other ways to spruce up your outdoor space, visit our specialist paving centre in Widnes. We have a range of high-quality paving, walls and circle features available.