How To Create A Garden To Encourage Wildlife

A massive amount of green spaces have been cleared and used for building, which means that a lot of wildlife is struggling. Every year, they’re losing more and more habitats and it’s getting harder for animals to find places to live safely. Unfortunately, a lot of that damage has already been undone and there isn’t a way back. But the good news is, you can do something to help. It’s easy to create a garden that will encourage wildlife and creates new habitats where they can thrive. It’s a great way to help wildlife and it’ll make your garden a far more interesting place if it’s filled with all sorts of different creatures. Here are some ideas on how to create a garden to encourage wildlife.

How To Create A Garden To Encourage Wildlife

A Pond

Putting a pond in the garden is one of the best ways to encourage wildlife. You can get some fish in there, of course. You’ll also attract plenty of insects that like to live near the water as well as some amphibians as well. It’s also a breeding ground for water-based plant life as well. Creating a pond in the garden is not as hard as you might think. You can dig one out yourself and line it before filling it. If that sounds like too much hard work, you can make one using a pre-formed pond. It’s a lot quicker and you won’t have to worry about lining the pond to make sure that water stays clean.

Wildflower Meadows

Wildflower meadows used to be everywhere, but now they’re few and far between. That’s a real problem because there are a lot of species of insect that thrive in those environments. The good news is, it’s so easy to create one in your own garden and encourage wildlife. All you need to do is let the grass grow out until it’s long and then sprinkle some wildflower seed all over. It’ll give you a great, natural looking wildflower meadow which attracts all sorts of insects. The overgrown look is nice but it does mean that you can’t really use the area so it’s best not to turn the entire garden into a wildflower meadow. Instead, you should choose one section of the garden to use and then keep the rest neat and tidy.

Composting

Composting is a great idea for any keen gardener because it’ll help you to get better results when you’re growing plants and vegetables. It also has the added bonus of encouraging wildlife a find a new habitat. Small creatures like worms and woodlice love it. You might even get some frogs in there as well. When you’re making your own compost, there are 2 mains ways you can do it; hot or cold. Hot composting is done in a container and covered so heat builds up inside. This is the fastest way to do it and works best in a smaller space. The cold method is done in a big pile. The material breaks down naturally. So it takes a lot longer and you’ll need more space. One thing to remember is that you should stick to raw food only. If you use cooked food, you’re more likely to get rats in the garden.

Fences

You need to be careful with your garden fence if you want to encourage wildlife. If you have a fence that goes right down to the ground, things like hedgehogs and frogs won’t be able to get into the garden. By leaving a small gap underneath the fence, you’ll allow more creatures into the garden. This will link all of the different habitats together so you can create a more varied ecosystem. Just remember that if you’ve got pets of your own in the garden, this might not be an option because they can escape. In that case, you might just have to focus on getting insects and birds into the garden instead.

Bird Boxes

Birds are an important part of any ecosystem so installing a bird box and feeding them regularly is an essential step. Put the feeders quite high up. Make sure that they’ve got a bit of coverage from surrounding foliage, especially if you’ve got cats around. In the Spring, they need to be fed protein-rich food like fat balls and in the winter, they prefer seeds.

These simple changes around the garden will create lots of new habitats where wildlife will thrive. You’ll encourage wildlife in the garden in no time.