Date/Time
Date(s) - 11/04/2025
7:30 pm
Location
Kilmington Village Hall
Categories
Becca Flintham is an environmental educator working at Wildwood Escot and was a very welcome return speaker.
Starting with the bad news, as outlined in 2019 by the ‘State of Nature’ report, 41% of our wildlife is declining. The statistics are not encouraging. Factors such as climate change, changes in agriculture, invasive, non-native species (such as American signal crayfish and Japanese knotweed), people pressure (housing and infrastructure and subsequent habitat loss) have combined to create pressure on our wildlife. People (adults and children) have less contact with nature and are less well-informed about, and emotionally connected to, wildlife and natural places – therefore care less about looking after them.
The good news is that we can make a difference by gardening in more wildlife-friendly ways. There are over 15 million gardens in the UK, covering 270,000 hectares – a very large potential habitat for wildlife. Gardens can provide food, shelter and breeding sites for a range of native species. Species that have declined in the wider countryside – e.g. common frog, song thrush, hedgehog – can be found in significant numbers in urban gardens
We can start with plants which are often overlooked when thinking about helping our native wildlife yet our wild trees, shrubs and flowering plants are a vital part of the British landscape as well as being the foundation of all our natural ecosystems. As gardeners, we tend not to choose many plants from our wild British flora, yet flowering plants are the wildlife most vulnerable and under threat in the UK. Therefore, it is important to include native wild plants in your garden to help conserve plant biodiversity. Not only that, many insects, especially caterpillars, feed on specific native wild plants and native fauna has evolved alongside our native flora, best suited to these plants.
When thinking about how to improve your garden for native plants, soil, water, nutrients and pollinators are key. Some plants (such as Yellow iris) need wet or marshy soils, whilst others can tolerate free-draining soils. Acid soils suit plants such as Cross-leaved heath and heathers, while other wild flowers such as the Pyramidal orchid will only be found on calcareous or chalky soils. A shady area in your garden could be a good spot for woodland plants such as Wood anemone, foxglove or bluebells.
As a general rule of thumb, most wild plants will not need much in the way of nutrients: in fact, many prefer nutrient-poor soils. If you want to create a perennial wildflower meadow in your garden, you will probably need to decrease nutrients there, perhaps by removing topsoil. Otherwise, wild flowers will tend to be swamped by more vigorous grasses, or nutrient-loving plants such as docks or stinging nettles.
Plants also need to be able to reproduce, either vegetatively (eg by runners, rhizomes etc) or by producing seeds or fruits which will germinate to produce new plants. Some plants (e.g. willow and hazel trees) are wind-pollinated; however, many require assistance from pollinating insects, and seeds or fruit to be spread by birds and other animals. So, including some native wild plant species in your garden will be a good first step to encouraging other wildlife to feel at home there.
Moving on to Animals, their ecological needs can be summed up by shelter, water, food, mates. Starting out with invertebrates, these form a huge and diverse group that includes insects and other sub-groups such as spiders, woodlice, snails and slugs (every gardener’s favourites!), and of course earthworms.
There are nearly 24,000 species of insects in Britain including butterflies and moths, grasshoppers and crickets, ‘true bugs’ (Hemiptera), dragonflies and damselflies, beetles, flies (including hoverflies), and bees/wasp/ants (Hymenoptera).
All these different invertebrates will form a vital part of your garden’s ecosystem, pollinating flowers and food crops, recycling dead plant and animal materials and returning nutrients to the soil, controlling pest species (eg ladybird/aphids, wasp/caterpillars), or becoming prey/food in turn for other animals (including birds and mammals).
Providing Shelter for invertebrates can take many forms:
– Lots of planting in warm sunny positions
– Log piles and dead wood, in shady or sunny places (tip: bury an old holey bucket or basket filled with woodchips in the ground, to encourage wood-eating beetle larvae)
– Compost heaps (excellent homes for all kinds of minibeasts)
– Purpose-built ‘Minibeast Hotels’
– Bee bundles, drilled logs, ‘lacewing nest boxes’ etc
Most invertebrates will get all the Water they need from their food or immediate environment; however, a pond will provide a habitat for those that have aquatic or semi-aquatic life cycles.
Good Food sources for invertebrates include:
– Flowers with nectar and pollen (avoid double and sterile garden varieties)
– Beetle banks (flower-rich beds or strips) in veg growing areas
– Native shrubs, trees and flowers (foodplants for insect larvae, esp caterpillars)
– Range of plants flowering throughout different seasons of the year (including early and late sources of nectar and pollen, e.g. goat willow, ivy)
Garden Birds: our gardens can be important resources for common birds, declining/less common species, and summer (Spotted flycatcher) and winter (Redwing) migrants.
Thinking about birds’ needs: for Shelter, helpful things to have in your garden are:
– Trees, shrubs and climbers
– Evergreen and prickly/thorny planting (protection from weather and predators)
– Generally dense planting, providing cover
– Nest boxes (hole or open-fronted, located away from bird feeding areas)
Birds need Water both for drinking and for bathing, to keep their feathers in good condition (essential both for insulation and for flight). A bird bath or large dish (eg flowerpot saucer, upturned dustbin lid) are good. Keep topped up in dry or freezing weather; wash out regularly.
Where Food is concerned, as for invertebrates, think about variety:
– Plants with berries/fruit/seeds
– Different types of bird feeders with a range of foods (peanuts, sunflower hearts, seed mixes, nyjer seed, fat balls, mealworms etc) but remember to keep feeders clean, and don’t put out too much food as this may attract rats
– Situate your bird feeders where you can watch visiting birds easily
One problem for garden birds = cats. Can discourage with various hi-tech (PIRs and water sprays) or low-tech (baffles on bird tables) solutions. Also bell your cat, and don’t put bird food or nest boxes in places where cats can easily ambush them.
Another problem in gardens can be grey squirrels. Will eat a lot of bird food (expensive), and may also damage feeders. Very difficult to discourage: anyone got any solutions? I’ve tried or come across the following: chilli on peanuts, cages round feeders, water pistols, hanging feeders in inaccessible places… Nothing seems to faze them for long. Maybe just have to accept that they are now a component of our wild fauna, and enjoy watching them. Maybe build a squirrel assault course!
Which brings us to: Garden Mammals. Broadly split into two groups, small mammals (mice, voles, bats etc) and larger mammals such as deer, fox and badger.
Mammals will benefit from some of the same Shelter options as birds (dense planting, hedges and shrubs etc), but also from:
– Purpose-built nest boxes (eg bats, hedgehogs) – can make these yourself
– Habitat piles of branches/twigs/dead leaves (also log piles, compost heaps)
They will also take advantage of any suitable Foods made available for them, e.g. a small mammal feeding station (old door, perhaps covered with wire mesh cage to keep cats out). Important to feed the right foods: hedgehogs need dry cat food or special hedgehog food; shrews are insectivores so will eat fly pupae; mice and voles will eat cereals and seeds.
To get an idea of what small mammals are around in your garden, can set humane (non-injuring) traps (Longworth traps or similar) baited appropriately. After examining and identifying your catch you can re-release the animal.
Garden amphibians and reptiles: frogs/toads/newts, and slow-worms and possibly common lizards or grass snakes are the species likely to be seen in a garden.
For Shelter, they will benefit from:
– Plenty of dense planting, shrubs, grass left unmowed to grow tall
– Compost heaps (nice and warm for reptiles), log piles and habitat piles
– A hibernaculum or winter hibernation site: logs, branches, bricks etc buried in soil, creating an underground system of cracks and holes. Good if a south-facing earth bank is created on top or nearby, so reptiles emerging in spring have somewhere to sunbathe and warm up their body temperature.
– Corrugated iron/roofing felt/old metal dustbin lid refuges.
Most important in terms of shelter for amphibians, will be a pond. (Can’t breed without access to water.)
A pond is probably the most beneficial single habitat you can create for wildlife in your garden:
– All sizes of pond are useful, but most aquatic wildlife prefers shallow water
– Wherever possible, ponds should be filled with rainwater
– Water levels will fluctuate naturally throughout the year, without harming pond wildlife
Small ponds can be made in containers (even old washing up bowl – but remember to put in a stone or log so wildlife can climb out).
Bog gardens = alternative if safety’s an issue (interesting plants can be grown in them).
Making a pond will encourage wildlife – ideally aim for lots of shallow areas in the pond: wide shallow margins and gently sloping edges. It doesn’t have to be deep – 30cm in the middle is fine. Use a spirit level on a long strip of wood to check pond is level across (so you do not end up with bare liner showing on one side). Plant up with aquatic and marsh plants in and around edges of pond, including plenty of submerged oxygenating pond weeds. Use native species, from a reputable supplier (e.g. Rod d’Ayala).
Wait for pond animals to arrive! Don’t ‘introduce’ animals, eg by collecting frogspawn – this spreads diseases and invasive plants.
Other general guidelines:
– Avoid pesticides; encourage natural predators of garden pests (birds, mammals, insects)
– Use mulching to control weeds and reduce watering
– Reduce water use (thereby conserving wetland habitats and wildlife) by collecting and storing rainwater in butts and tanks
Last but not least: enjoy watching the wildlife that you share your garden with.
Our gardens are the places where everyone can have an encounter with the natural world… And that’s got to be good news for people, as well as for British wildlife