Gardening for wildlife

1. Plant a tree
   Planting a tree in your garden is one of the easiest steps you can take, providing food and shelter for nature as well as storing carbon emissions. Hazel, blackthorn, hawthorn, and crab apple are all examples of suitable species, or any other fruiting trees. Avoid planting too close together or too near buildings or fences.
2. Feed birds
   Different foods attract different birds. Goldfinches, tits, bullfinches and sparrows like seeds. Robins, thrushes, blackbirds, woodpeckers like insects. Starlings love mealworms.
3. Make compost
   A compost heap is a refuge for insects like millipedes, woodlice and spiders – a great food source for other wildlife. Worms also help to process waste into ready fertiliser. It’s also a good place to deposit slugs and snails – nature’s recyclers!
4. Embrace the night!
   Wildlife is active while most of us sleep. Plant night-time blooming flowers like honeysuckle to encourage insects that in turn feed bats. Avoid garden lighting as it can confuse bats and moths, and close your curtains. Agree with your neighbours to leave hedgehog holes – gaps in boundaries to let animals in and out. They like to roam up to a mile at night!
5. Make a woodpile
   Provide safe shelter during the winter for a variety of creatures like butterflies, wasps, moths, newts, toads, slow worms and hedgehogs. Best to use larger logs with bark if possible. Stone and tile piles also work well.
6. Leave untidy corners
   Seed heads feed birds and plant stems are a refuge for invertebrates. Fallen leaves make warm and dry places for hedgehogs to hibernate and encourage fungi – important plant food. Don’t disturb the leaf piles during winter!
7. Let the grass grow
   If you have a garden leave long grass areas on your lawn. This is especially good at the edges or around shrubs and trees. In-between places are where invertebrates and pollinators thrive. Over time add wildflower seeds – scuff the earth and sprinkle – in Spring. Just water in.
   Leave it until July before you mow, allowing flowers like dandelions, cowslips, yarrow and many others to provide nectar to feed bees and butterflies. Longer grass provides a microclimate beneath the stalks for insects to lay their eggs. But mix it up. Some mown areas are also helpful to animals which feed on worms.
8. Keep it natural
   Avoid hard landscaping or artificial grass in your garden. Not only do these reduce the amount of rain that your garden can soak up, potentially increasing flooding, but they also reduce the amount of food available for bees, birds and hedgehogs.
9. Just add water
   Even a very small pond can encourage frogs, newts and toads, all good pest controllers. It may bring dragonflies during the summer and at night, water loving insects will attract bats. Make sure your pond has sloping sides so creatures can get out. If not a pond, then keep a shallow, sloped dish with water to offer birds a drink or bath, hedgehogs and flying insects will benefit too. Use native pond plants if possible.
10. Love trees and hedges
    Native species are a home for many plants and animals – they help to build urban nature corridors. They hold tons of carbon and provide shelter as weather becomes more extreme. Roots stabilise soils and improve air quality by absorbing pollutants. Only cut them back after birds have fledged in July – and before they nest again in March.
11. Mix it up
    Do some un-gardening! It’s all about a mosaic of different habitats in every space. So see how many habitats you have already and see what you can add. Make your boundary a hedge, leave messy edges or places where nettles and buddleia can be a home for butterflies and ladybirds.
12. Grow nature-friendly plants
    Choose plants which flower at different times throughout the year to create a “nectar cafe”, for pollinator insects like moths, butterflies, bees, hoverflies and beetles. These include early flowering plants like primroses, crocuses, bluebells, bugle, hellebores and comfrey and then late flowers such as sedum, ivy, goldenrod, verbena and valerian.
13. Get a swift box!
    Swifts are in need of our protection. They return to the same nests every year. Buy or make nesting boxes for them – place at 5 metres or above and not south-facing, with clear flight space. For more information look up Norwich Swift Network. The RSPB has tips and box-making instructions.
14. Make friends with your neighbours
    Form a street nature club with neighbours – tend your street trees and plants and help in each other’s gardens. Someone might have tools, another person muscle power, another some good ideas.
15. Support science with your observations
    Share your nature observations with the Norfolk Biodiversity Information Service through its website – www.nbis.org.uk. It holds biological and geological records for the whole county. Alternatively, at a national level, you could share your information with iRecord or iNaturalis. Join the RSPB or Norfolk Wildlife Trust.

If you don’t have a garden…

You don’t have to have a garden to make a difference. Here’s a few ideas:

• Micro-meadow – even a small pot of meadow grass and wildflowers on a balcony or in a yard can be a habitat.
• Leave water out for birds and invertebrates
• Volunteer with a local nature group – get outside and help nature recover in Norwich! It’s great for your mental and physical well-being too. Visit our Volunteering Opportunities page