- Grow wildlife friendly plants (see our plant guide below), and always use peat-free compost.
- Provide a bee hotel, and manage it well – an easily cleanable one with replaceable cardboard tubes is best
- Don’t use pesticides, including slug pellets, and buy organic plants. Even better, swap plants and seeds with your neighbours!
- Plant a fruit tree
- Create your own miniature wildlife meadow by leaving a patch of lawn to grow for a year. If very little comes up, sow with a native wildflower mix. Cut once a year in late Summer.
- Dig a pond (make sure it isn’t too deep and has gently sloping sides to allow hedgehogs to climb out easily)
- Reduce your mowing
- Do nothing! (Let a corner in your garden grow wild)
- Build a log pile
- Build a compost heap (the insects will love it!)
TOP TIP: replace old fences with native hedgerows, then manage them sparingly once they’re grown (a trim once every 3 years is enough!)
The 10 tips have been taken from Professor Dave Goulson’s book, The Garden Jungle. Several members of Wilderhood Watch attended his talk at the Sandpit Theatre, St Albans on September 11th 2019.
Our plant guide was kindly compiled for Wilderhood Watch by local garden designer and St Albans Friends of the Earth member Amanda Yorwerth.
This Wildlife Trust garden plan has lots of ideas on how to make your garden friendly for pollinators, as well as other animals.
How many species from our 2019 Pollinator Highway survey can you see in your garden?
