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Creating A Wildlife Garden
There are lots of benefits of gardening for wildlife and creating and maintaining a wildlife garden. A wildlife garden will provide a home for many creatures and by helping hedgehogs, birds, bats, frogs and toads to survive the winter and providing a safe environment for them to raise their young, you will be rewarded by their help in keeping garden pests under control.
A wildlife garden could include all or some of the following:
Wood Pile 
Hedgehogs may choose to nest in the shelter a wood pile creates, if left undisturbed for long enough algae and moss will grow this will attract insects and mini beasts providing a welcome meal for larger creatures.
Compost Heap 
Birds will come to feed on the bugs a compost heap will attract, compost heaps are also regular nest sites for hedgehogs and toads.
WARNING – Test the sides and base of your compost heap before turning over or using to prevent injury to sleeping wildlife!
Hedges Instead Of Fences 
Hedges provide flowers and fruits for wildlife, nesting places for birds and cover for hedgehogs. Hedges are more attractive than fences too. Ideal species for hedging are, beech, holly (evergreen winter shelter for roosting birds), buckthorn, dog rose, hazel, goat willow, hawthorn, and berberis.
Wild Flowers And Plants 
Flowers provide nectar and pollen to feed insects such as butterflies, hoverflies and bees. Plant wildflowers from seed (it is illegal to remove them from the wild). Wildflower seed packs will probably include: bird's foot trefoil, vetch, hawkweed, wild white clover, bluebell, broom, wild cornflower, hound's tongue, common knapweed, lady's smock and wild marjoram. Recommended garden plants: buddleia (attracts butterflies), scabious, ice plant, michaelmas daisy, phlox, sweet william, marigolds, sunflowers, ornamental grasses, wild irises, pyracantha, snowberry, hostas and cotoneaster.
Rockery 
Toads, newts and female frogs usually spend winter on land, under rockery stones (or in a log pile). Recommended rock plants: aubretia, hardy geraniums, ivies, sedums, sempervivum and wild thyme.
Wild Corner
Allow nettles and weeds to take over a corner of your garden. They will provide privacy for small creatures and food for caterpillars.
Hedgehog, Bird + Bat Boxes
Providing nesting boxes for hedgehogs, birds and bats might encourage these creatures to reside in your garden, though tenancy cannot be guaranteed! Place bird and bat boxes in trees with cover, but if you have no trees fix them on walls or fences, preferably in the cover of foliage from a climbing plant, and well away from the reach of cats and other predators. Hedgehog boxes should be sited in a quiet spot hidden by ground covering plants, low shrubs or tree branches.
Mini Pond 
Having an area of water in your garden will attract many creatures including frogs, toads, newts, diving beetles, water scorpions and thirsty hedgehogs.
Pick an area away from trees, especially sycamore. It is important that one side of the pond slopes to allow hedgehogs and other wildlife a way of getting out. Around at least one third of the pond perimeter should include a shelf that is only 5-6cms below the normal water level. Put stone-free soil on top of the shelf and introduce some native water plants. Recommended water plants: water milfoil, water starwort, miniature water lily, water soldiers (floating plant). If you don't want a pond, perhaps because of small children, an area of BOG GARDEN will provide an interesting drinking point for wildlife. Line a shallow depression in your chosen site with pond liner; fill two thirds with soil to hold water. Your bog garden could support: meadowsweet, loosestrifes, marsh marigold, ragged robin, cuckoo flower, cotton grass, bog pimpernel, creeping jenny & reeds.
Bird Bath and Bird Table  
A bird bath provides birds with somewhere to drink and bathe (feather cleaning is essential) and a bird table holding a variety of foods will attract various feathered friends. Peanuts in dispensers are favoured by Blue Tits, Coal Tits and Great Tits, but Greenfinches, Nuthatches, Siskins and even Woodpeckers might be seen pecking at the nuts. Seeds and specially purchased bird food sprinkled on the table will attract Finches, Robins, Sparrows and Starlings. Half a fresh coconut provides much needed energy for small birds. Once the shell is empty it can be used to hold a bird cake mix (recipe available from RSPB).
DO NOT USE pesticides or slug pellets in your wildlife garden or you will kill off species that are links in the food chain. Also, you run the risk of killing those creatures you do not wish to harm, as pesticides tend to be indiscriminate and they, and slug pellets, CAN kill hedgehogs. If you are overrun with slugs and your resident hedgehog(s) do not seem to be keeping the numbers down you could try beer traps (pots of beer placed at the bottom of plants into which the slugs fall or climb) or the skin of half a grapefruit placed on the ground like a dome.
It will take time for wildlife to move in but you will be surprised just how quickly you see many new visitors.
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