Wildlife-Friendly Gardening

As a gardener there are many things for you to think about. There's flowers, shrubs, trees and the lawn. However please don't forget about the wildlife. Wildlife is very important too because they carry out many tasks. Even if they don't have any practical benefit to your garden, you should still think about giving them a good home in your garden.

When thinking about wildlife-friendly gardening, you need to realize that birds and animals want very different things from us humans. We want everything to be neat and tidy whilst they don't. Instead they want places to hide and shelter in. They also want food and drink.


So that pile of sticks and leaves that are currently sitting in the corner of the garden might look unsightly to you but for a little animal such as hedgehog or toad, this is a place they feel safe and can even find food in.

If you have had to cut down a tree, you might want to look at removing the tree stump and roots. However tree stumps that are rotting down provide a great habitat for insects which will then be eaten by birds and toads. So if you want your garden to be wildlife friendly you should leave the stumps where they are and allow nature to take it's course.

Don't forget to provide water for the wildlife you want to attract. Especially in the winter when it's freezing temperatures or in the summer when there hasn't been much rain. Birds really need access to water everyday so that they can drink and bath in. You don't have to provide anything fancy, just make sure you keep the water fresh and clean. A pond or a fountain can be a good idea if you are looking for something decorative too.

Be very careful about the products you use in the garden too. For instance, slug pellets are very bad for wildlife. What happens is that the slugs eat the pellets and then birds eat the slugs meaning the bird consumes the pellet too. One slug pellet might not have much effect however if the bird, hedgehog or other animal eats a lot of slugs it could kill them.