9 Ways To Attract Wildlife Into Your Garden
As humans spread around the world, eating up wild areas in exchange for housing estates and towns our gardens become an ever-more important refuge for wildlife. And while the average garden consisting of a lawn and patio isn’t going to do much for the local wildlife, there are a number of simple things that you can do to help out nature.
Build A Pond
Just like humans, wildlife needs water to. Whether it’s for drinking, bathing in or breeding in, providing a source of water in your garden is a brilliant thing to do. Ponds can attract frogs and toads, beetles, damselflies and more into your garden so take the time to do it right – and don’t go putting any fish in there!
Make A Log Pile
From slugs and snails to small mammals like hedgehogs and mice, wildlife needs places to shelter. Whether that’s just a place to sleep, or somewhere to hibernate over winter leaving a few decent-sized piles of logs at the end of your garden will help to create suitable places for wildlife to hide.
Leave Some Wild Areas
Non-stop lawn may look nice but these monocultures don’t do much to support wildlife. If you’re serious about doing your bit then consider leaving a small area without any interference. Let the weeks grow up and the insects move in. And when all the birds and bats start appearing in the summer to hunt for them you’ll be glad you did your bit – and did nothing 
Plant Nectar-Rich Flowers
We all know about the food web. Larger creatures eat smaller ones and so on down the chain. So no matter what wildlife you enjoy seeing, attracting more insects into your garden should help you to support them. Or, like me, you might just be bug crazy and enjoy seeing butterflies and bees just for the sake of it.
Whatever happens, try planting nectar-rich flowers that will attract nectar-feeding insects into your garden. Examples include red valerian, nicotiana and buddliea.
And of course this won’t just work during the day. These plants will also attract night visitors such as hawk moths and in turn may therefore support local bats.
Add A Bird Bath
We mentioned the importance of water earlier and it’s just as important for birds as it is for other animals. The problem is that birds tend to be shy creatures and don’t like to get down to ground level if they can avoid it.
So placing some water higher up where they will feel safer is a much better idea for them. Either invest in a proper bird bath or worst case scenario just create something yourself using a large saucer on top of a fence post or similar and they’ll be well away. Once again, try to do your best to ensure it doesn’t freeze in winter.
Buy Some Bird Feeders
The wider the variety of food you offer the more birds you will potentially attract into your garden. So don’t just go for the standard peanut feeder and assume that will do it. By all means it is better than nothing but for best results consider adding millet, niger, sunflower seeds, fat balls and live mealworms to the mix to draw in as many species as possible.
Plant Some Shrubs
Animals and birds like cover to feel safe. Not only that but shrubs can also provide sources of food as well as nesting and hiding sites. So if your garden is very open with just a lawn, try adding some shrubs to provide cover for wildlife.
Put Up Nest Boxes
As the trees are cut down and parks are tidied up there are fewer and fewer places for birds to nest. So help them out – and get them breeding in your garden. Different birds like different sizes of box so try to add a range to your garden to maximize your chances of getting birds breeding near you.
Oh, and it’s not just birds. Consider also putting up bat boxes in any wooded area of your garden.
Create Insect Habitats
Lastly you can now buy the insect equivalent of bird boxes ot provide overwintering sites for insects such as ladybirds and bumble bees. These are often small and quite attractive so why not add one to your shopping list?
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