Wildlife friendly gardens

Bat boxes, hedgehog houses and insect houses are great ways of introducing artificial shelters into the garden, although natural shelter is the best in terms of conservation. This means trees, bushes and hedges, since birds, insects and small mammals can secrete themselves away from predators.

If you have a pond or water feature, don’t use the garden hose to fill it up. Instead use rainwater collected in water butts and barrels, as pond life prefer this.

Meadowmat 1m squares of ready planted turf offers a quick way to allow part of your garden to become a natural wild flower meadow.

Think sustainably!

There’s been a big push toget us all to think about the environment and sustainability, and protecting wildlife is something we should all get involved in. So think too about materials before using them in the garden. Try to avoid materials that result from depleting natural resources. That means using timber from managed forests, avoiding tropical hardwoods, and avoiding plastics which might contain chemicals that leach into the soil. If you’re buying compost make sure it’s peat-free, since the peat bogs of the UK are under serious threat.

Better that we make our own compost using vegetable peelings, food waste and natural garden waste as it helps to encourage a healthy diversity of wildlife. Compost improves soil structure and is a great breeding ground for

tiny invertebrates and fungi, which in turn attracts birds and small mammals.

And it hardly needs saying but avoid using pesticides in the garden.