# Wildlife Garden Tips



## gregjones (Sep 14, 2008)

Hi all!

Does anyone have any tips on how to attract wildlife into their garden?

My fiancée and I recently bought a house and the garden is quite big! It hadn't had any maintenance done on it for at least 20 years, so it was a jungle when we first moved in.

Anyways, we've started to tidy it up a bit and have decided that we will keep the top end near the house nice and tidy, but are going to let the bottom end of the garden grow naturally to encourage wildlife. We've already seen frogs and foxes which is more than what I've ever seen in my parents' back garden in the last 23 years!

A tiny stream runs down the back of the garden which is why I think we've seen lots of frogs. I am tempted to build a pond, but don't want to have something that's too high maintenance. I've read that it's possible to have a "water garden" where you can put plants in the water to stop it going stagnant. I don't plan on putting any fish in it because that would mean needing a filter.


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## Podarcis (Mar 1, 2010)

This is music to my ears. Go on the Natural England/ARC websites and their is loads of stuff free to download about this. There is a book, published in partnership with the Wildlife Trust and RSPB on doing this. Please put up pictures as it sounds fantastic. You'll find that with very few additions and a tiny bit of work wildlife will thrive there!


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## gregjones (Sep 14, 2008)

Thanks for your reply! I'll look into it and see what I can do!

Here's a picture of the bottom part of the garden so far:










On the right is a big apple tree which I have had to prune (it was very big and was hanging over the neighbours gardens) but it should look great once it's had time to grow back. On the left, we are getting rid of the bushes etc that were there and will see what options we have for adding in either a pond or a rockery.

The big brown pile of dead branches at the back was already there when we moved in so there could even be some hedgehogs or something nesting under there!

I shall post pictures as we progress


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## Podarcis (Mar 1, 2010)

Leaf piles attract newts and grass snakes. Start with the little chaps and the food chain will build itself! Bat boxes are always worth it too.


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## LukeRutherford (Jun 15, 2010)

Get some bird houses and build a pond without a filter, , also make compost heaps and piles of dead leavs and branches, also try and make a log pile. some idea's ( *images of google* )


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## gregjones (Sep 14, 2008)

Podarcis said:


> Bat boxes are always worth it too.


I've always wondered how you attract "new" animals to the area. I was considering getting a bat box, but the closest I know that there are bats is about half a mile away over a busy road, so I don't imagine the bats will venture far enough to discover a new home. Maybe I'm wrong! Who knows!


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## GRB (Jan 24, 2008)

Generally being too tidy is the worst culprit. If you have leaf litter which is allowed to collect at the bases of trees etc then that is usually good for springtails, etc.


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## Janine00 (Sep 20, 2008)

As well as your log pile, make sure you have a compost heap in a warm, sunny preferably south facing spot. If you put a piece of corrugated tin down not far from this you may attract slow worms to live in the area (if they are not there already). Also, grass snakes lay their eggs in warm compost heaps, and if you have a stream running through the bottom of the garden you may get visitors. 

Any pond you make must not have a filter, nor fish. Fish are the worst thing to have in a pond if you want wildlife. We put in a pond 2 years ago, and have toads, frogs and last summer even had a couple of mayflies visit and one appeared to be laying eggs just under the waterline on a plant stem. I got some large logs from Himley (local park) where they often cut down fairly large tree's or branches, and put these around the back part of pond as a feature. Allow the grass to grow wild around the base of these and sew a few wild meadow flowers into it and see if they take. This makes a brilliant edging for anything that may want to visit your pond, as they can then hide in there for safety and retreat to it when you are cutting the lawn etc.

Good luck, and let us know how you get on... it's all good fun and I spend hours sat in my garden just watching the critters!


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## gregjones (Sep 14, 2008)

Hi all!

Making some great progress with the garden. I feel bad for the wildlife with how much we're cutting back, but it has to be done so we can figure out exactly what to do with the garden.

I have a log pile, and also a big rotting tree stump which attracts lots of bugs (which the frogs must be eating!). But the best thing about the garden so far is the foxes! Every time I go round there to do some work on it, there's at least 1 fox in the garden.

I want to kind of split the garden in two, so that the top end is nice and tidy for us to sit and entertain etc, but the bottom end is left for the wildlife.

Has anyone got any tips on how to do this? I was considering putting up some sort of trellis to give the wildlife the privacy they need, but the downside to that is that we wont be able to see the bottom of the garden. Ideally we want something so we can still see it from the house, but still slightly closed off from the rest of the garden.


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## feorag (Jul 31, 2007)

Leaving the bottom end to grow wild is the best idea, as that will encourage the wildlife - that's one of the many reasons for the decline of the hedgehog - too tidy gardens (and decking :gasp!!

One thing though, if you do put in a pond of any shape or description, make sure you have either a shallow beach area at one end, or large stones on a marginal shelf, so that any wildlife that fall in can get out. That's another reason for the decline of hedgehogs - they can swim great, but if there isn't a way of stepping out of the depth of water they will eventually drown.


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## NickBenger (Nov 18, 2010)

grantjames said:


> Hi all!
> 
> Making some great progress with the garden. I feel bad for the wildlife with how much we're cutting back, but it has to be done so we can figure out exactly what to do with the garden.
> 
> ...


You could put up like a picket fence... Remember you still want the wildlife to be able to access in and out of this area so there needs to be gaps of some sort large enough for hedgehogs and by the sounds of it foxes!


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## Rojugi (Jan 25, 2011)

it seems obvious once you know; but my best tip for attracting a variety of native animals is to have a variety of native plants.

If you leave an area to "go wild" you often end up with one kind of plant dominating the area and providing a habitat that's only valuable to a handful of species.


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