Greenspace and How to Attract Wildlife to Your Garden

Oh you’d have loved this, with your green fingers – a talk by Steve Lovell, award winning horticulturalist, environmentalist, and wildlife supporter, on how to attract wildlife into the garden. We’re not talking ‘wild’ as in elephants, wildebeest, or eagles. There’ll be a bye-law against that. No, this was about native species and being ecology friendly.
For starters, what’s not good for wildlife? Well, hard surfaces, paving and decking, all well and good, look nice, but unlikely to attract wildlife. Steve said it with a look, a raised eyebrow that said “You knew that already didn’t you?” Plastic flowers in baskets might be alright with a once yearly going over with the Marigolds (gloves, not plants) and soapy water in the Spring, but they won’t attract wildlife.
To do that and keep a good ecological balance go for ‘natural’, not a manicured showpiece with ne’er a blade of grass out of place. All elegance but not natural. A ‘bowling green’ lawn (oh for a bowling green finish, if only…) is no good for insects and blackbirds, they can’t feed off it.
Crab Apple trees are good for winter fuel for birds, and Hawthorn is good for autumn berries. Moths feed on Honeysuckle, bees like Foxgloves, and Elderberry, well, when you’ve made the obvious just freeze any leftovers for winter feed for birds. Buddleias attract butterflies, but don’t keep a goat as well as it’ll eat it!
Create a mini meadow – wild grasses, flowers, Delphiniums, Globe Thistle, and Astors are friendly to hoverflies and butterflies. Ivy (oh no not Ivy…!) is good for birds nesting, over-wintering butterflies, and berries provide winter fuel.
Did you know, a pair of nesting Blue Tits will take 12,000 caterpillars in a season to feed their young? Now there’s a business opportunity for somebody…. bugs and crawly things? Ladybirds, wasps and hornets are good for the garden and spiders like munching aphids so don’t kill them off.
Target a bird box to attract specific birds. No good nailing up any old box, and Housemartins don’t need a box, they build their own under the eaves. Bird seed with wheat? Pigeons will love you but they’ll dominate the garden and gorge on it. Maize and sunflower hearts are good for wild birds. And don’t throw out that decaying tree trunk that’s lying around, it’ll make a home for insects and birds – make a log pile and leave the rest to them.
Hedgehogs, they’re in serious decline, we’d 26 million of them a few years ago (not me personally), down to a million now. Create a space under old timber, leaf piles, leave a gap at the bottom of a fence so they can move at night and they’ll come for your slugs and snails. And a water feature and you will attract toads, newts, frogs, damsel flies, and dragonflies. And they’ll eat your slugs too…!
For more information on Steve’s work go to: www.stevelovellgreenspaces.co.uk
For more information about Syston & District U3A go to https://u3asites.org.uk/syston
Syston & District U3A is part of the nationwide organisation the ‘University of the Third Age’. A voluntary body aimed at people in their ‘third age’ i.e. retired, who wish to maintain an active and interesting lifestyle.