Leave an area of your lawn unmown
Can you go one better than no-mow may? As great an initiative as no-mow may is, we know the flowers in your lawn are just getting started when June comes round and the mower comes out again! That’s not to say a wildlife friendly garden can’t have any short lawn at all, but long grass, with or without wildflowers, can be a vital resource for moth and butterfly caterpillars, hunting spiders and foraging hedgehogs.
If you have the space, consider leaving part of your lawn to grow long all year, possibly mowing sections of it at a time, towards the end of summer and leaving some long grass through the winter too!
Leave leaf litter in autumn to break down naturally or mulch your beds
Fallen leaves, a wonderful sign of Autumn from our deciduous trees. They are also food for hungry worms, that will drag leaves underground, recycling the nutrients which feeds the soil.
Leave some leaves on your lawn to be pulled under by the worms. Any you do need to gather up, can be mulched, this can be done in a large leaf pile, or directly on flower beds. If composting them down, then raking some leaves into a line and running the mower over the leaves can break them up and make them mulch quicker to mulch down. But don’t do this on an old leaf pile, as you could harm hedgehogs or other animals that have made a home in there.
Be mindful of wildlife when turning your compost heap
Homemade compost is a great addition to any garden. Creating your own compost can cut down on the need to buy in material and is a great way to recycle within the garden ecosystem. If you have the space you can leave heaps of material to slowly rot down, creating great habitat piles, however, if you need to compost a bit quicker then turning the heap is an important step to keeping the process moving and breaking down that material. Be careful when turning your heap, as plenty of wildlife may have made a home there, carefully inspect and turn with care to avoid harming slow worms, hedgehogs and voles that might have made a home within the heap.
Plant/tend winter-flowering plants
Although we think of summer as being synonymous with bees and butterflies, many pollinators will be active year round and need a source of nectar to keep them going. Sometimes a warm spell can bring bees out from hibernation early, something that is happening more frequently as climate change disrupts weather patterns.
Therefore planting a range of plants to include winter flowering species is an important step in support wildlife. In Kent, species such as snowdrops, hellebores, Mahonia, winter aconite and winter flowering honeysuckle would all do well.
Visit Tyland barn Nature park and gardens near Maidstone for inspiration on what to plant where. There is a café onsite and plant stall selling nature friendly locally grown plants.
Leave areas of your garden undisturbed for wildlife
Nature rarely sits still, in a complete and thriving ecosystem there will always be some kind of activity somewhere, creating and a rich and dynamic ecosystem. Humans can be part of that process and our active gardening, by for example disturbing the soil and spreading seed, can all be part of this process. However, constant disturbance can also prevent some species from using a space. Leaving an area or areas of a garden to its own devices and free from human interference for a time, with minimal disturbance, can provide an important refuge for species needing a quite place to nest or rest.
Leave seedheads to overwinter
Not only can they provide visual interest through the winter, but seed heads will continue to feed birds through the winter as they pick off seeds still lodged inside. This is a free birdfeeder, that doesn’t need topping up or cleaning out. Insects will use the dried stems to hibernate too. Leave stems and seed heads up until spring, when new shoots start to emerge.
Plant spring-flowering bulbs
Spring bulbs are a great way to add colour to your garden from February to May. They can also be a vital support to pollinators waking up and looking for nectar. Daffodils, snowdrops, fritillaries and grape hyacinth and willow can all provide important spring pollan and nectar.
Leave appropriate winter food for wildlife
With wildlife in decline, food is often a key resource that is missing in the wider landscape, when we cut our hedges annually we often remove the berries that might have supported birds through the winter. When an overpopulation of deer browse out the understory of a woodland there are fewer insects for many birds to forage for in summer. Pesticides used across farmland depletes insect populations and large areas of a single crop, including grass, can mean fewer natural sources of seed. However, much like nature friendly farmers will go out of their way to support species through the year, by creating grass margins along their arable field edges, or winter bird seed crops with overwintering seed heads or by alternating their hedgerow cutting to allow berries to ripen. Gardeners can offer similar sources of winter food. Planting shrubs trees and bushes which hold berries, nuts and other fruit will feed many species through winter. Leaving seed heads up, provides a natural bird feeder, and not using pesticides will help your garden support many more insects. Compost heaps, dead hedges and long grass are all important foraging areas.
Artificial feeding with bird feeders being the most common example, can also help some species. Birds such as blue tits, great tits and greater spotted woodpeckers do well from garden bird feeders. While robins, blackbirds and pigeons can benefit from the dropped seed.
However, bird feeders can also be a source for spreading disease among birds, and to help rather than hinder wildlife, it’s important to keep feeders clean, disinfecting them regularly, (weekly if possible).
Monitor or thaw frozen bird baths or ponds this year
Wildlife in the UK is adapted to survive periods of frozen ice over a pond. Species overwintering in shallow ponds may be more impacted however, so it’s important to consider this.
Bird baths can be defrosted (or the ice removed and replaced with freshwater) in order to continue to provide that important source of water for bathing and drinking.
Wildlife ponds can be left alone, unless the ice is remaining un-thawed for several days. In this case, melting a hole with a warm saucepan held over the ice may help to increase oxygen exchange across the water.
Further advice can be found here:
Leave autumnal nectar sources (e.g. Ivy) to overwinter
Much like providing nectar through winter, Autum is an important time for pollinators, as queen bumble bees prepare to hibernate and honey bees get their final stores ready.
Ivy is a brilliant source of autumn nectar, as well as berries providing food for birds later into the winter. Letting ivy reach flowering, is a huge support to garden wildlife.