The Utterly Ignorable Garden Guide

Welcome to your new home on one of the nicest streets imaginable.

Not only are the neighbours great people who help you settle in well, you’re right next to a nature reserve once judged by the BBC to be one of the top ten Eco Places in the World. No need to fly to the equatorial rainforest: you have a wonder on your doorstep.

The proximity of the house means that with a little tinkering in the garden you can attract a massively diverse selection of wildlife and help support biodiversity. It also looks, smells and sounds incredible, and will give you some free edible treats throughout the year.

When we moved here the backyard was just rubble, scrubby grass and little else. Over seven years we’ve shaped it to be home to an amazing variety of creatures, as well as a vital visiting area for many more.

Of course, you’re perfectly entitled to ignore this booklet and do what you like with the garden: you’re paying the rent after all. If you’d prefer to just concrete the backyard, or slap down some decking, then great, that’s your prerogative.

But if you would like to continue developing a wildlife garden, then I hope this guide serves to help you get an overview of what to expect throughout the year, and how to maintain it to keep it thriving.

I’ve picked out nine areas that are especially important to the garden, and written a little on each. I hope you find it useful; but if you do decide to chuck this away, perhaps consider tearing it and putting it on the compost heap. The worms will love it.

We have been very happy here, and are sad to move on. However, we’re delighted to be leaving a great home to someone else. I hope you find much happiness here.

1: Compost Corner.

Let’s start with perhaps the most important part of the garden, the engine room that propels everything else, the few square feet that contain more life than anywhere else: the compost heap.

It’s an open heap, and that has great advantages: newts, frogs and toads find it irresistible due to the arthropods it attracts. Those arthropods: woodlice, centipedes, worms of all colour and length; have lived built up such strong colonies there, subject to disturbance just twice a year and with a plentiful supply of food, that they turn food and garden waste into rich compost so fast it’s incredible.

This rich heap of life also attracts hedgehogs and foxes, and blackbirds like to visit to check out that days offering of worms. It’s ridiculously easy to maintain: throw most food waste (not meat or dairy though, that reeks) directly onto it and leave it. Crowds of fruit flies will break it down first, the woodlice further chew it up before the worms pass it through their bodies and out pops compost.

Every now and then, adding green waste (fallen leaves, grass clippings etc) in a layer will keep it healthy, and shredded paper, old wood and suchlike will add texture and help more life find shelter.

You might expect compost to smell: but I can assure you that if anything, a well-kept mature compost heap actually gives off a sweet smell. I will concede it is not the prettiest of arden adornments, but it’s screened off in a corner so doesn’t detract from the beauty of the site.

It is worth turning twice a year: I do it Mid-April and Mid- October, just after and before hedgehog hibernation time. This keeps it highly active, moist and allows you to get some rich, beautiful fertile compost out to use on the rest of the garden.

I also would recommend moving it every 2-3 years: dig a small pit adjacent to it and when turning it move what you can over to the new pit, then continue to use that side only.

Compost means you can grow stuff much more effectively, cut down on food waste and create high-density housing for millions of critters. What’s not to love?

2. Mini Pond and Hedgehogs Water is essential to wildlife gardens. That can come in many forms, and the minipond is a small but effective way to get standing water into a garden. It’s just a plastic box sank into the ground, with plants added. Each June, you’ll get bright yellow irises bloom. There is also a carpet of Water Forget-Me-Nots sprouting, blue jewels, and newts like to rest there on warm days. It will generally look after itself, but it might be an idea to fish out slate in Winter, and top up with rainwater in Summer should it get too low.

Hedgehogs will mainly be seen in the front garden, but they do spend a lot of time in the back, sniffing off slugs on the compost heap. The mini pond is great for them, providing a welcome drink, and I’ve built earthwork, windproof hedgehog homes by the back fence for them to shelter by (currently obscured by foliage). These will provide access for hibernation when the cold weather rolls by: they are windproof, waterproof and safe.

3. Main Pond The main pond is a riot of life. Bees, hoverflies , butterflies and moths will use it to drink from, and within are amphibians, dragonfly/ damselfly larvae and billions of tiny creatures. Again, the pond will generally look after itself. The rockery provides plenty of shelter for creatures, and the back area is now pretty much covered in foliage and ivy: all these provide a shade, shelter and texture.

The front and side of the pond is gravelled: this is protected by a layer to stop grass growing through: though it will anyway! In Spring, I clean the area by moving the stones away from an area, removing soil and grass, then repositioning the stones.

It’s a lovely little Spring and Summer sanctuary, listening to bees buzz above the water and damselflies flit across.

It can get a bit of weed build up: if this gets too bad it can be easily removed by inserting a stick and winding around: once it gathers in, it’s a good bit of material for the compost heap.

4. Screen The bamboo screen serves two purposes: it blocks off the compost heap and provides a frame for honeysuckle and other creepers / climbers to grow on. They love it, and by August it disappears under green, with flowers galore and with it bees and other pollinators. Dragonflies like to sunbathe here, as it is the last part of the garden to get sun on an evening.

Beneath the screen is a small plot, ideal for growing low lying veg: I’ve had luck with courgettes, potatoes and squashes here.

5.Wildflowers Knowing that we would be leaving before we’d have to harvest much, I decided to not plant veg here (previously peas, beans, broccoli, courgettes, tomato and much more has grown happily here). Sorry about that.

However, next spring you should get a riot of colour and scent: self-seeding poppies, verbena, borage and much more will break through and fill the space.

The borage seems to thrive incredibly, and the bees love it. You’ll also get loads of ladybirds, shieldbugs and butterflies make it a regular stop. It needs little weeding – after all, many of the plants here would be considered weeds by some

– and it’s exciting to see things explode from the soil. There is a large stand of Sunflowers currently dominating: they too will self-seed and fight with the other plants to grab the ample sun that plot receives.

6. Shrubs These were put here several years ago as more permanent features, and do well, competing for space then dying back to seemingly little during the Winter. I let them get on with their thing, generally, and they reward this attitude with fine displays of staggered flowering during the Spring and Summer. I should know what their names are. But I don’t.

7. Raspberries These are only three years old, planted from a single cane. They have made themselves very much at home, and will probably need controlling now they’ve made advances further down the garden. To keep them healthy, I cut back any branches that have fruited that year as they won’t fruit the following year.

You’ll get loads of leaves blow into the garden in Autumn: I collect them into a heap, let them rot down for a month then spread them periodically over the canes over winter: this mulching has the reward that from early July to late October you’ll get a tremendous bounty of sapphire fruits fresh from your garden: if you’ve not tasted a raspberry picked immediately after a warm summer storm you’re in for a mind-blowing experience. There is also a patch next to the pond, from a cane removed from here.

The area where the fence meets the outhouse is where the mint grows: in a wet patch this will go crazy and you’ll be treated to the freshest smell imaginable: it also makes decent tea if that’s your thing.

8. Privet and Poppies

During the Second World War, the Government acquisitioned the usual garden divider (wrought iron) leaving unseemly gaps: the humble privet stepped in to fill that proverbial and literal gap. It can seem a dull and over-regular plant. It doesn’t need to be.

To make it wildlife friendly, it’s good to leave it a little wild (in Compost Corner it’s never pruned). That way, it becomes a textured home for creatures, who then take nocturnal flights and get swiped on by the bats that visit. It will also produce berries and flowers, and a hiding place for fledglings each Spring.

In the corner, by the path, is a small stand of Welsh Poppies. These gorgeous yellow blooms were the first flower to appear in the garden when we moved here: I have no idea how it got there. They return annually, and are a reminder of how life finds a way.

9. Outhouse Once a place to store coal, this brick building is getting old and worn out, and will probably need demolishing soon. For now, it’s a fine place for overwintering creatures: moths and butterflies hide themselves away deep within and burst out in Spring.

It also provides the neighbourhood cats with a vantage point for surveying the locale: these in turn ensure that the few rodents that are attracted to the garden are kept low!

FRONT GARDEN The front garden doesn’t get much mention here as its quite small, and if you have a car you’ll probably want to reclaim the driveway for parking. However, I’m leaving a birdfeeder that will ensure you get a great number of visitors, particularly in the winter. Expect coal, blue, great and long-tailed tits, robins,

collared doves, blackbirds, thrushes, nuthatches, magpies, wood pigeons, wrens, dunnocks, and much more. The circus adjacent has visits from woodpeckers, jays and other corvids.

There is a bird house on the pine which I’ve left: it was put up in early 2019 and while visited frequently it wasn’t used for nesting.

Hanging half-coconuts and food dispensers in the trees will guarantee a loyal group of birds – and hedgehogs – visiting regularly.

You’ll also get a great display of bluebells, daffodils, crocuses and herb robert on the margins of the garden: leave them a little wild to ensure they thrive.