Having a garden is so much more than just having a nice lawn, pretty flowers. Where you can hang out your washing to dry, and sit and enjoy the warmer weather. It is also a haven for wildlife, which is why we are looking at how to look after wildlife in our garden.
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Make Your Garden Wildlife Friendly
No matter how big or small your garden is, there are little things we can do to make it wildlife friendly. As you know we love animals in our home. We have one dog now, plus 4 budgies, which C is hoping to market 5 soon, and then another to even up to 6.
I do love watching birds in our garden, and we have bird feeders. Which attract so many birds, with my favourites being the green parakeets and the woodpeckers.
Other things we can do to attract wildlife –
- Wild Flowers – Have a little area for wildflowers, these are pretty but also attract bees and more. These will then produce nectar and pollen for bees, butterflies, and other pollinators. You can get the kids helping with this. By planting the seeds and watching them grow
- Provide Food – Set up bird feeders with a variety of seeds and nuts to attract different bird species. We have a hedgehog in our garden. So look at providing some food for the hedgehogs along with water. To keep then healthy. Make sure you change daily to keep it clean and avoid any diseases being spread.
- Create Shelter– Incorporate various types of habitats into your garden, such as trees, shrubs to provide shelter and nesting sites for wildlife. You can also install birdhouses, or insect hotels to accommodate different species.
- Minimise Chemical Use – Avoid using pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilisers in your garden. These can be harmful to wildlife. Instead, practice organic gardening methods and use natural alternatives to control pests and weeds.
- Create Wildlife Corridors – Connect your garden to neighbouring green spaces by planting hedges, creating wildlife-friendly corridors, or leaving patches of wild vegetation. This allows wildlife to move freely between habitats and increases biodiversity.
- Be Mindful of Nesting Season – During the nesting season, which typically occurs in spring and early summer, be cautious when pruning trees and shrubs to avoid disturbing nesting birds or other wildlife.
Looking after our wildlife, and hearing the birds singing and the bees and butterflies flying around. Are all things that make me smile. As they say it is the little things. We have had hedgehogs in our garden for years. Max my dog we lost last year, would always find one underneath the trampoline or by one side of our garden. He would spend ages chatting to it.
Do you encourage wildlife in your garden? What do you do to attract them?
I’ve stopped using slug pellets to see if I can get hedgehogs back
hopefully they will return soon
I hope they come back, we used to get one in our garden when we had Max our Malamute he would lay and talk to it, Our German Shepherd picked it up and wanted to bring it in the house
A great post and useful reminder about what we can all do to help wildlife in our gardens. Everything new that I plant is specifically for pollinators but I’ve recently realised that I haven’t planted anything for the birds – though I do feed them occasionally. I’ve got my eye on a Juneberry bush, recommended by David Domoney, so one of those will be going in soon.
I hope your garden is coming along in this lovely weather.
I do love the sound of a Juneberry bush I will have to look into that. We have a gardener as I am not a gardener and it is too much for my dad to do these days
Do love encouraging wildlife into my garden – love our feathered friends the most
I love seeing them in the garden, saw our woodpecker the other day for the first time in a few weeks
A pond or water of any kind of so important to attracting wildlife to a garden.
I agree, we had one until our daughter was a baby, we then filled it in as my dad was a nervous wreck.
Our friend have taken wonderful care of a hedgehog in their garden, she is thriving!
That is so sweet, I do love seeing the wildlife in the garden
I have a couple of flowering bushes, one which has purple flowers and another with white flowers! Normally these are so popular with the bees! This year though, the flowers are all out, and yet there are hardly any bees at all, and I have no idea why not!
Oh no that is a shame, but saying that I can not recall seeing many in our garden this year as well
It’s a beautiful post about Spring and things we can do to improve our interaction with nature, right here, by our place where we live. Gorgeous pictures, too!
I do love wildlife in the garden, when I was in the kitchen first thing there was a squirrel having great fun
I love these tips to attract wildlife into our garden. Building bird houses is my favorite tip to takeaway from this post.
I am glad it has given you some ideas, we all need to encourage he wildlife where we can
We get squirrels and birds in our balcony. We usually leave some water in a container for them to drink.
Aww that is lovely and great they come so close to you
Thanks for sharing. I love having wildlife in my garden.
It is lovely watching the wildlife and seeing them go about their business
These are great ways to encourage and support healthy wildlife. We like to choose native plant species to help support pollinators.
That is great and will keep them coming back
We love watching the wildlife in our garden. Last year, Oz set up a little hedgehog hideout and stuck a camera inside so we could watch them. It was absolutely fascinating. Hoping to do it again this summer 🙂
Ow wow that must have been amazing to watch, I want to do that now
We just moved into a new home with many gardens, trees, and nature surrounding us. I love all of these ideas on how to look after wildlife in our garden. So far, we have seen all types of birds, rabbits, and squirrels. I will use some of these ideas for our new home!
It sounds like you have a great garden to watch the wildlife
How adorable! We only get squirrels and bunnies in our yard but I think it’s so cute to create a little space for the smaller critters in the area.
We get the odd brave squirrel in our garden, never any bunnies though
We are in The Pocnos and I understand wildlife venturing into your backyard. We have a large yard and I want to fence in a small section in the back that can just for my dog and also so that I can grow some plants as the deer eat everythign 😉 We have skunks, Bobcats, Black Bears, Coyotes, Deer, an adorable red Fox and lots of chipmunks! I do love it!
I am very jealous you get all of those how amazing to have them I would never get any work done
Looking after wildlife in our garden us such an eye opener and my and my family will be planning our little wildlife haven soon.
It is amazing the wildlife you can welcome to our gardens
We have bird feeders but I’m really bad and am always forgetting to fill them up so it’s definitely something I need to get better at. When we do more to our garden I do want to make it even more welcoming for wildlife x
It can be easy to forget, I do at times as well. We recently started growing wild flowers so hoping they attract more bees and butterflies
I do love having as much wildlife in the garden as possible. I’d love to introduce a nesting box as it would be lovely to have baby birds around. The thought of wildflowers sounds great as they can be so pretty. The kids and I love having butterflies in the garden.
We love doing various things to attract wildlife, I do love butterflies and wildflowers
We have some bee houses and bird houses in our garden, along with some bee water things – these glass things that hold rain water for insects! It’s so important to take care of nature.
I do love nature and everything plays a part in all our lives
I love seeing all the wildlife visit the garden. It is great to have an area with wild flowers to attract the bees and it also looks pretty too. I think that big hotels built from old bits and bobs also look great too.
I love watching the wildlife as well, there is something calming watching them go about their lives. I have seen some great little build your own bug houses ideas
We’re about to start working on our first garden and we’re so excited about it. We don’t know much about gardening but we’re ready to learn.
That will be lots of fun watching it grow, I do love being outside in ours, although not gardening
Great tips! I mostly just get birds in my yard, but I always make sure to have water in the fountain for them and I put out food so they do not have to search too hard for their next meal.
I do love the birds, we get so many varieties, we have had a woodpecker visit for years but recently 2 have started coming to visit
I LOVE these ideas! We have a fairly big garden, and I always love seeing what kind of wildlife it attracts. It’ll attract a lot more this year!
It is lovely seeing what your garden attracts