Wild areas
Who says your garden has to be tidy?
Have a wild section with native flowers and plants for insects, birds and mammals
By native plants, we include weeds – weeds are a wonderful source of food and habitat for our insects! By including wildflowers, native plants and weeds in your garden, you will attract insects for birds to eat and feed their young on. Imported plants don’t offer as much food, so our native wildlife doesn’t do so well.
Bees, butterflies and moths are all in need of our help too and native plants, flowers and weeds will provide food sources for them.
Wild sections still need management – so this is not an excuse to let things run rampant! There are lots of plant species that will take over and smother the more delicate plants – so you need to keep an eye on things and cut back dominant plants when they get too big.
You will also need to keep an eye out for non-native species, as these can take over very quickly and ruin all your good work to help wildlife.
Wild areas, unused corners and meadows are a great place to add bug hotels, hedgehog homes and log piles. All of these structures will help to encourage woodlice, spiders, solitary bees, lacewings, butterflies, toads, snails, slugs, millipedes, mice, shrews and hedgehogs.
Encouraging these into your area and offering the types of food they like, will ultimately attract a wide range of birds.