As a landscape garden designer, I’ve learnt the secret to a successful and easy to manage garden that both attracts lots of wildlife and looks beautiful.
Rather than heading to the garden centre to splurge cash on random plants, it comes down to a simple bit of planning. And best yet, I know that everyone can do this at home with a few simple steps that happen to be fun for the whole family.
(c) Fiona Llewelyn
Few gardening guides begin with what wildlife is already using your garden, but it’s the best starting point: look to see what animals and wildflowers already call your outside space home.
Spend some time getting to know them, ideally over time, noting down a list or spreadsheet. What birds do you see? Where do they nest? What plants are caterpillars eating? What wildflowers are popping up? What colours are they? Are there any signs of hedgehogs or other animals like slow worms or badgers? Where are they eating and where are they sleeping? Are beetles and centipedes under dead wood?
Once you know some of this, you can decide what exists that is important to keep, and which plants or areas you can change or enhance with useful plants and habitats.
While you’re surveying your outdoor space, take another look at wild plants to see if you like them. Quite often we are told something is a weed and feel we need to remove it, but wildflowers can be every bit as beautiful as the plants we might buy to replace them! Many of my favourite and most useful garden plants are wildflowers, including ox-eye daisy, devil’s bit and field scabious and red campion.
It’s really important to measure your garden accurately with a tape or laser measure. Note the measurements down on a large sheet of paper with a pencil in case you need to erase anything, and a ruler.
Gridded paper can be helpful because you can translate a meter or half a meter in real life to each square on paper. Look on Google Maps to check the rough outline and angle of your garden as a comparison. Add buildings or structures that are staying, such as your house, shed and patio. Leave off anything that is changing, such as existing plantings areas that you are going to make bigger.
Emperor dragonfly
Before diving into specific plants, consider carefully what habitats your garden already has or that you would like to add. For instance, a lawn with daisies, self heal and dandelions can be a brilliant short grass habitat for ground nesting insects and for birds to feed on worms. Wild trees and shrubs around your boundaries, and even in your neighbour’s gardens, such as hawthorn, elder and hazel, mimic woodland edge habitat or hedgerows for nesting. A patch of permanent meadow is useful for grassland insects.
A pond of any size is a particularly valuable habitat that supports water dwelling wildlife like pondskaters, waterboatmen, dragonflies, frogs and newts, as well as everything else. Birds love a drink, as do hedgehogs! It’s amazing how many different micro habitats even a small garden can squeeze in.
Wood anemone (Anemone nemorosa) in late evening sunlight, New Forest National Park, Hampshire, England, UK - Guy Edwardes/2020VISION
Light is everything in gardens because it defines what plants can grow and where. Always think about light changing through the seasons, the sun is higher in the summer and lower in winter, changing the shade created by fences, hedges and buildings. While deciduous trees drop their leaves making areas lighter in winter and spring. Map different light areas onto your plan.
Is there a spot shaded by the house and another in full sun? Far from a challenge this is brilliant for extra variety of plants used by different insects. Sunny gardens are unfairly seen as better than shaded but shade and part shade gardens are some of the best for growing woodland flowers including wood anemone, wild valerian, primrose, ferns and cow parsley.
One of the best ways to judge what will grow well in your garden is to first peek into other front gardens and parks around your house to see what you like that grows well there. If something looks healthy in a garden round the corner, it will almost certainly grow well in your garden. This is a far more useful and tailored plant catalogue than any that arrive through your letter box, you can even see the plants’ size! Local Wildlife Trust nature reserves are also amazing for this, because you can see which wildflowers, shrubs and trees naturally grow in your area and also which ones you are drawn to.
What is the coldest temperature your garden can reach in winter? And how much rainfall do you receive in summer? Your lowest temperature will tell you which hardiness of plant you need. In Yorkshire, we usually fall into the H4 or H5 hardness categories which means temperatures drop to -10C to -15C at the very lowest in winter. Look online or on plant labels and only buy plants with at least an H4 hardiness rating. Anything higher, such as H3 won’t survive winter in Yorkshire.
Rainfall is important too, plant something that needs constantly moist soil in freedraining or low-rainfall areas and they will struggle in hot summer dry periods. Yorkshire is well known for its rain, but in exposed or easterly areas, it can be very dry in summer, steering your plant choices or expectations.
Is your soil mainly made of clay, sand or silt? If you’re unsure, pick up a lump of soil in your hand that’s slightly wet and squeeze it! If it sticks together well like plasticine, your soil is probably mainly clay based with very fine particles that are water retentive. If it falls apart and looks sandy, it will be sand based and free draining. If it’s somewhere in between, it’s likely silty or a mixed loam, with average water retention. Some plants will favour wetter or drier soils, it’s worth checking online before buying any plant. Whatever the soil type, they are all improved with organic matter, rotted plant material in the form of compost or natural leaf litter.
Elephant hawk-moth caterpillar © Dawn Monrose
If you’d like more butterflies and moths, don’t just think about flowers, consider what plants their caterpillars eat - often the less glamorous wild grasses such as Festuca and Deschampsia species or even stinging nettles are important.
Wild bees and wasps might need wood blocks with drilled holes or some bare soil on sunny banks. Hedgehogs, frogs and toads all need access in and out of your garden, as well as leaf litter to rummage through for prey to eat. Birds benefit from plants that produce seeds or fruit to eat, including teasel, knapweed and crab apple.
Eco Friendly Garforth pollinator patch - Moira Flynn
With all of the knowledge you’ve built up about your garden from following the above steps, you will be able to choose plants that fit your garden’s criteria and have much more success. It might sound like a faff doing this, but it needn’t be perfect or take too long. But it will save you a huge amount of time, money and effort in future and set your garden up for a stable wildlife habitat as plants establish and thrive for years, if not decades to come.
Once your plants arrive, always give them space - plant to the final size they will grow, don’t squash them in. Your garden might look a little bare to start with and it’s tempting to cram in more plants, but give them space and they will soon fill out.
