CREATE YOUR OWN NATURE GARDEN


Last year as lockdown was imposed, more and more of us found peace and solace in our gardens. Never had the beauty of the garden been more welcome as movement outside of the home was restricted.


Recent studies have shown that being close to nature and spending time outdoors is good for mental and physical wellbeing. But how can we make our gardens not only beautiful to us but also to visiting wildlife? As the gardening season is just about to start, experts at Stratford Butterfly Farm give us a few tips on how to encourage more wildlife into our own gardens.


While it may be tempting to have a maintenance free garden, these are often the least attractive to wildlife. A garden with abundant flowers and other features is much more likely to become your own personal wildlife haven. It is not just the bees which gardeners should be keen to attract but other wildlife too, like butterflies, birds, bats, frogs, toads and hedgehogs and many of these will help control other pests you might not be so keen on, for example slugs.


Flowers are of course a magnet to wildlife, but so too are trees and hedges, night scented flowers, long grass, water features, even your compost heap. There are also bug houses and bird feeders which will see wildlife flocking to your garden.


Whilst an immaculately keep garden might be pleasing to the human eyes, wilder areas can become mini jungles for beetles, caterpillars, grasshoppers and butterflies. Some British butterflies lay their eggs on long grasses too. Leaving a little unkempt area at the bottom of the garden is perfect for this. The best thing to attract butterflies and other insects are flowers. Butterflies visit flowers in search of nectar. Whilst they drink, they also pollinate each and every plant they land on. Butterflies are great gardeners.


Different flowers attract different species of insects so it’s a really important to plant as much variety as you can and to aim for flowers for as much of the year as possible.


As well as flowers there are other things you can do in the garden to bring the bees buzzing. Solitary bees do not live in hives. They prefer to make their own nests and lay their eggs inside small tunnels instead. Use bamboo or drill holes into old logs, put as many as you can fit into a wooden box or old bird house. If you don’t have the time to make one, you can always buy one!


A firm favourite with children is building a bug house- and spring is the ideal time to do it. These items make a fantastic 5 star bug hotel - old or broken flowerpots, dried grass, old logs and twigs, old bricks, plastic bottles and cardboard, unwanted tiles or slate and wooden pallets. Bugs hotels are not about clean bedding and spas; the bugs will love it no matter how messy it looks to us.


For more information on creating a wildlife garden download the farm's leaflet and start planning your own beautiful garden now www.butterflyfarm.co.uk/attraction/our-displays/the-wildflower-garden


125


LIVE24-SEVEN.COM


ENTERTAINMENT NATURE GARDEN


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132