November in the wildlife-friendly garden

I'll be honest - November isn't always my favourite month in the garden. To me it sometimes feels like a shop where the shutters are starting to come down and where the stock is starting to look a bit tatty, the choice more limited.

Interestingly, it is not that the shelves are bare. Not a bit of it! We always get calls at this time of year from people concerned as to why their generously stocked feeders, full of fresh seed and nibbles, are attracting few visitors. "Where have our garden birds gone?" they worry. Well, nature's larder is pretty full at the moment, with seeds and berries.

It's also full of insects, even if the audible buzz has gone from gardens. Most adult insects and spiders perish at this time of year, but that provides yet more food for birds to helpfully mop up.

Looking beyond the gathering gloom of longer nights, November of course has much beauty to offer, including fabulous colours. One of the first trees I planted in my new garden earlier this year was Sorbus 'Joseph Rock', mainly in the hope that the pale berries it will ultimately bear will provide late winter food for thrushes.

However, it also has wonderfully intense autumn colour. There are only a few leaves on it this year (below), but in just two or three years it should be one of the autumn jewels in the garden.

Other wildlife-friendly trees to try that are great in small gardens and have fiery autumn colour include:

• Field Maple - a UK native with lemon yellow autumn leaves
• Spindle Euonymus europaeus 'Red Cascade' - a cultivar of a UK native, with bright red autumn foliage
• Crab apples, such as Malus 'Evereste' and Malus 'Golden Hornet'. Good autumn foliage plus the small trees are decked with colourful fruity baubles.

Jobs in the wildlife friendly garden in November

• By the end of the month, most hedgehogs and bats will be in hibernation, but it has been so mild that there's still good reason to knock up a hedgehog box in case any are out there looking for the perfect place to sleep out the winter.
• It's the start of tree planting season - buy bare-rooted trees and they are both cheap and easy to manoeuvre. Or look for late season bargains in the garden centres.
• It is pruning season, too, removing dead, diseased and damaged wood from fruit trees and creating an open 'goblet' effect. Just don't take out too much wood in one winter, and avoid pruning plums and cherries until the summer to prevent the risk of 'silver leaf' disease. Use the prunings to create twiggy piles, which I think are the best nesting places you can provide in gardens for Wrens, Robins and Dunnocks