There are 4 key factors that are important to making your garden wildlife-friendly, namely food, shelter, water and garden management.  You can encourage wildlife without compromising the way your garden looks – it can look good and provide colour throughout most of the year whilst providing cover, protection, habitat and food sources for wildlife.  Good management includes home composting, saving rainwater and avoiding chemicals and peat-containing composts. 

It’s great to connect to nature, with its host of benefits including a sense of wellbeing and improved mental resilience; a perfect antidote to the events of the last year and a half.

As we move into winter, we must remember the importance of food and shelter for the wildlife. 

• Our hedge includes a lot of berry-producing shrubs to provide food and shelter for the birds and small mammals.  The prickly shrubs protect those sheltering from their predators. 
• The nectar and pollen of ivy are particularly important to many insects before they go into hibernation. 
• Don’t cut down perennials immediately they have stopped flowering; instead leave them standing till the spring, providing shelter for insects and small animals such as frogs and voles.  Some insects will overwinter in hollow stems and piles of leaves, wood and sticks also provide shelter.  The seedheads are visited by many birds.
• Put out bird food and fresh water for assorted creatures, but make sure you clean the feeders and water dishes regularly to avoid disease.  Do put the feeders where cats and rats can’t reach them!

Another job for the autumn is to thin out pond plants in your wildlife pond and clear fallen leaves and old vegetation.  Remember to leave what you pull out by the side of the pond overnight to allow any critters to crawl back in.  In cold weather keep a small area of pond surface clear of ice as the birds have to bathe.

In spring, it will be time to think about new projects and how best to manage the garden.  Some suggestions are

• Plant some pollinator friendly plants – lookout for the Plants for Pollinators or Perfect for Pollinators logo – and consider planting some berry shrubs as a winter food source.
• Put in some ground cover plants and allow some grass to grow long for shelter and insects to lay eggs.  You could plug plant the grass with wildflowers which can be purchased online from specialist suppliers.  For wildflower seeds, you need to plant on bare soil, so they’re best going in a bed.  You could even extend this to your front verge and put up a Blue Heart!
• Provide water for wildlife to drink and bathe.  It could even be a pond in a bucket or barrel.  Make sure there is an escape route for creatures that fall in!
• Put up bird and bat boxes and build a bug hotel.
• Make a pile of deadwood, logs, stones for shelter.
• Build a hedgehog home and provide gaps at the base of fences for them to travel between gardens.
• Put in a water butt to conserve water, buy peat-free compost or better still make your own.

Diane Poole on behalf of Effingham Climate Change Biodiversity group