Sage Advice

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Take a walk on the wild side

Callum Halstead

Last year, I discovered that my Edinburgh garden was home to an ichneumon (Ichneumonidae). While this does sound like a discovery I may have made while playing Pokémon GO™, my ichneumon was a real creature and one that belongs to a large but little-known family of parasitoid insects, common throughout the British Isles. Although I was unable to identify the exact species— there are just so many of them —I knew that my ichneumon was preying on other troublesome wee beasties hiding in the undergrowth, making it both a welcome visitor and exactly the sort of insect that I wanted to be encouraging into my garden. My discovery was one of a succession that I made in my small suburban back garden that spring, having decided to know more about its biodiversity and arming myself with a helpful mobile identification app.

Any garden has the potential to provide a niche and refuge for local wildlife. Naturally, the wider the range of habitats you can create, the greater the diversity of life colonising your garden will likely be. But even if, like mine, your garden is very small, so long as what it contains is at least a bit more environmentally useful than a hot tub and some fake grass, you will surely be providing shelter and possibly a little sustenance for something out there.

After spending a few years developing and improving the planting in my garden, I was certainly noticing an increase in the quantity and variety of visiting birds and insects, ichneumons and all. I couldn’t claim all the credit, however, as some of the influx was due to something that was happening beyond my plot…

My house at the time was bordered on three sides by scruffy patches of grass that the council would, in normal times, scalp on a semi-regular basis. The job would then be finished off, not with a nice sharp pair of edging shears, but with weedkiller— leaving a blitzed, yellowing halo around the perimeter of each patch. (Thankfully, the community organisation Pesticide Free Balerno have helped put an end to this destructive and unnecessary practice in the area). Then, during the pandemic— and particularly during the various periods of lockdown as limits were imposed on working hours and people’s ability to work in groups —councils across the country scaled back their grass cutting operations. The result was that nature returned to the suburban landscape. As these once shabby patches of ground were freed from their usual cycle of suppression, the plant communities they contained burst into life— and it was eye-opening just how species-rich and diverse they were, to see that so many different plants could hang on in a place like this, despite never normally being allowed to grow to their full height, or above even five centimetres for that matter.

Firstly, there were the grasses themselves. Without going through with a fine-toothed comb, I was still able to count at least five species (and there were probably more that I missed). The standout plant among them was Yorkshire Fog Grass (Holcus lanatus). I’ve known of this plant for years— mostly as a weed —and had never before paused to appreciate its beauty. Yorkshire Fog is normally considered a bit coarse for the garden, something of an unwelcome intruder in an otherwise fine lawn. There is good reason for this, as it looks absolutely terrible when it’s mown. This had certainly been the case in those patches surrounding my house. However, allowed to grow freely and undisturbed, this oft-maligned plant was afforded a rare opportunity to show off. In the early morning, it added a cool and calming colour to the meadow— its strappy, glaucous leaves edged with dew. Later on, as the day drew to its close, the soft, swaying flower heads glowed a wonderful mauvish-pink in the golden evening light.

Among the grasses, numerous wildflowers also seized their opportunity to flourish. While the grass was still short, a mass of Daisies (Bellis perennis) blanketed the area like a fresh covering of snow. These were followed by a crop of Dandelions (Taraxacum agg.) the likes of which I had never before seen. Forget-menots (Myosotis arvensis) and Sweet Violets (Viola odorata) grew in the dappled shade of two young Sycamores (Acer pseudoplatanus) and, in the sunnier spots, the grasses were punctuated by the strange bobbly flowers of Ribwort Plantain (Plantago lanceolata) and the short purple spires of Selfheal (Prunella vulgaris). Elsewhere, Creeping Buttercups (Ranunculus repens), White Clover (Trifolium repens) and Tufted Vetch (Vicia cracca) wound themselves around everything wherever they had gained a foothold. Towering up above all else were the lacy and sculptural umbellifers, Cow Parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) and Common Hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium). This list is not at all extensive. Not bad for a few patches of scruffy grass.

The arrival of wildlife was almost instantaneous. Looking across these newly formed little meadows on a sunny day, the air above was filled with life; the tiny silvery wings of insects glinting in the sunshine. The insects, in turn, attracted the birds— particularly the characterful and industrious little robins, blue tits and dunnocks —all of which prey on invertebrates. Prior to this, the area had been an almost exclusive stomping ground for the local jackdaws and rooks— also welcome, but not as endearing, and not a little bird in sight. When lockdown ended, the lawnmowers returned, and the little meadows regained their former shabby and slightly threadbare appearances. The little birds disappeared, and I’d imagine many of the insects did too.

Although the meadows weren’t around for very long, in that short amount of time I fell in love with them, and I missed them when they were gone. I don’t believe that I was alone in enjoying this more relaxed approach to controlling green space in the urban environment. There’s certainly a case for altering how we treat and maintain our local surroundings in order to allow wildlife back in. There are numerous benefits that could arise from nurturing proper wildflower meadows in the negative spaces of our housing estates and other urban areas. Just leaving the grass to grow had a drastic effect, but it wouldn’t take much effort to boost the biodiversity of these spaces even further. Seeding the areas with Yellow Rattle (Rhinanthus minor)— a semi-parasitic plant that attaches itself to the roots of grasses, slowing their growth —would allow other wildflowers the chance to gain a foothold, without being outcompeted. Councils would then only have to visit these areas to cut the grass once a year, in July, after the Yellow Rattle had seeded itself for the following year. The management of the space might need to be altered slightly, depending how fertile the soil is, but in general it would save on the cost of labour, as well as fuel. In the meantime, both wildlife and residents could benefit from an increase in habitat and biodiversity.

While our local councils may have returned to their old practices, I’m sure there is scope for residents to influence how their local green spaces are managed. If you have a local space in mind that you think could benefit from a bit of micro-rewilding, I encourage you to write to your council to raise the issue. Share your ideas and see what they have to say. If there’s a chance that your idea would save them money, I can’t see them not at least considering it. If the council aren’t interested, you could always investigate taking over the management of the area as a local community, which is something that is becoming increasingly common and is a lovely way of re-engaging residents with their local environment.

Getting back to gardens and gardening, as the growing season gets under way, I urge you to consider how you might leave or even create space for nature in your garden this year. There are a great many ways this can be achieved. If you have a lawn, I recommend allowing all or part of it to grow tall for a season, just to see what it does when left to its own devices. If access is an issue, you can always mow a strip through the middle to maintain a clear pathway. The contrast between tightly clipped lawn and long grass can be an attractive design feature in itself. If you decide that you enjoy the aesthetic and would like a more in-depth look at creating and managing a wildflower meadow in your garden, you can look to Christopher Lloyd’s excellent book Meadows (2004) for guidance. Within its pages you’ll find the same level of distilled wisdom that you find in all his books, covering the establishment of wildflower meadows, how to improve them, and how to increase the number of species that they contain.

Alternatively, if you happened to lose your fence in one of this winter’s storms and haven’t yet got around to re-erecting it, ask your neighbour how they would feel about a native hedge instead, using species such as Field Maple (Acer campestre), Guelder Rose (Vibiurnum opulus), Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), Blackthorn (Prunus nigra) and Dog Rose (Rosa canina). As well as furnishing your garden with flowers and attractive fruits, and providing some beautiful autumn colour, a hedge containing a mixture of plant species such as these will attract a diverse range of wildlife into the garden all year round. If your neighbour isn’t keen, then training plants against the walls of your house can create a similar type of habitat. One of my favourite plants to use in this situation is Firethorn (Pyracantha sp.) and its high value to wildlife really makes it the perfect choice. In early summer, its frothy white flowers will be awash with pollinating insects and, later in the season, these will be followed by a glut of red, orange, or yellow berries depending on the variety. These are an abundant source of food for birds. Trained plants can also often provide the birds with useful nesting sites and, as an added bonus, growing Pyracantha on your walls could probably act as a fairly good deterrent for would-be burglars, as it is one of the spiniest plants around.

Your transition towards a more biodiverse garden needn’t necessarily incorporate a major new project, however. Slight changes to the way you look after your garden can have a sizeable impact. I completely understand how tempting it can be to tidy up, but a little bit of disorder in the garden can be beneficial. Resist the urge to immediately remove everything that has died back for the season. Dead plants can still hold onto a lot of seeds, making them a valuable food source for birds. Hollow stems can also provide insects with a sheltered spot in which they can overwinter. If you happen to lose a tree in a storm or just remove some branches from one, instead of putting the lot through a shredder, keep some short logs aside and pile them together in a cool and damp part of the garden. Wood piles left to slowly decay can provide a haven for invertebrates. Likewise, piles of small branches and fallen leaves left in a sheltered position can provide hedgehogs with somewhere to hibernate through the winter months.

The best thing about gardening in this way is, of course, being able to sit back and watch the local wildlife benefit from the environment you have created. If you do discover something in your garden that you’ve never seen before— and I hope you will —try using an app like iNaturalist. It works for any living organism— be it insect, bird, plant or otherwise. It’s free to download, and its active community of knowledgeable users will help you determine what it is you’ve found. You’ll be contributing to citizen science projects in the process.