Supporters Denise and her husband tell us all about the actions they have taken for wildlife in their gardens, because in Denise's words:
Actions for a wildlife-friendly garden
Supporter Denise Nott tells us all about her wildlife friendly garden, and the actions she has taken to achieve it.
Small changes can make such a difference.
Over the past year, we have been focusing our efforts on making our gardens wildlife friendly as we have regular hedgehog visitors as well as a healthy bird population.
Garden hedgehog in Denise's garden in Wiltshire
We have bird feeders dotted around the front and back gardens with a variety of seed mixes which we source from a specialist supplier in the New Forest.
We have several bird nesting boxes including those for swifts and house martins as they are prevalent in our area.
Nest box in Denise's garden in Wiltshire.
We have also erected a couple of bat boxes as we have seen bats in the evening flying around our garden and installed hedgehog houses which have been used by our spiny friends for winter hibernation. We have a hedgehog highway for the hedgehogs to be able to move around our gardens.
Early last year, we created a wildlife pond in our front garden and we love watching the birds use it to drink and bathe as well as enjoying the insects that are attracted to it including water boatmen and large red damsel flies. We now also have frogs and tadpoles enjoying it!
Garden pond, Denise in Wiltshire.
Late last summer, we decided to create a wildlife garden in a grass area to the side of our property that we didn't really utilise. We created a second, larger wildlife pond full of native British water plants, installed a further hedgehog house, put bird roosting pouches in the pyracantha hedgerow, created borders full of insect-friendly plants and recently built a large bug house.
This garden has, during the Coronavirus pandemic, attracted many local people who enjoy seeing what we've been doing in this area and we purchased an A-board to give people information on what we're doing and how it helps wildlife.
The A-board which is frequently updated to provide updates and information on the garden's wildlife.
Both children and adults love seeing tadpoles and frogs in the pond and quite a number of people have asked us what they can do to help wildlife in their gardens so we have given them information to help them attract hedgehogs and birds. As a result, several families have told us that they will be or now have created wildlife ponds in their own gardens which is exactly what we wanted.
We are passionate about nature and care deeply about how much habitat mankind destroys in a quest for progress. By improving our garden for wildlife and sharing it with passersby, we feel we are giving something back.