Wildlife

The importance of Wildlife cannot be stressed too highly, and we all can play a part.

Watching Wildlife in your garden will give you hours of simple pleasure, so consider Wildlife friendly gardening. Befriend your Wildlife - grow plenty of flowers, shrubs and trees if you have space. Keep bare concrete patches to a minimum. Wildlife are looking for food, shelter, and some perform vital tasks such as pollination. To encourage birds put out bird food - but once you start don't stop - you will be rewarded by returning Wildlife visitors. Garden Oasis sells garden ponds and birdbaths in which birds will drink or bathe; even the smallest pond may attract frogs. The sight of songbirds bathing even in the depths of winter in a water feature close to your home never ceases to amaze - it's part of your contribution to their survival. Assist your Wildlife - have a compost heap if possible. With great luck you will encourage slow-worms to take up residence in your heap, they love eating slugs. They look like small snakes, but in fact are neither snakes nor worms but lizards. Frogs and hedgehogs also eat your slugs. Avoid slug pellets if at all possible - they have been known to kill domestic pets as well as Wildlife. Hand picking your slugs after rain, night time or very early morning can be very rewarding (little boys enjoy this one). Wear disposable gloves if you don't fancy handling them, even a throw away clothes peg can be used for picking them up. Try to release them back into a park rather than a farmers field. Go easy on pesticides for common greenfly and blackfly, ladybirds will help keep your greenfly in check. Garden Oasis sells deterrents for Wildlife such as moles which you don't want in your lawn. Never put down pepper to deter cats, its an irritant and can cause them to scratch at their eyes which can cause real damage. You may see an urban fox strolling through, or a heron trying to take one of your prize fish. Dragonfly nymphs will eat your tadpoles, but fully grown dragonflies are a Wildlife beauty to behold, and will feed on many flying pests. All Wildlife has a place - it is up to us to encourage it's survival.

Whether you live in the city or the countryside, wildlife is all around us and by doing your part to turn your open space into a haven for wildlife, you will be gain a great sense of satisfaction knowing you are playing your part in encouraging the survival of native Britain, and essentially satisfaction is what gardening is all about.