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Adrian Thomas

Regular readers will know that I’m on something of a mission: for the past 20 years, I’ve been beavering away trying to make my garden as wildlife-friendly as possible, and sharing my experiences in regular blogs and articles and books.

I believe that gardeners can have an amazing impact for wildlife, and by getting your hands dirty you also better understand the natural world and the threats it faces in the wider landscape. It tunes you in to nature.

However, every now and then I like to take a step back and ask myself an important question: are the thing I am doing in my garden truly bearing fruit? Honestly, objectively, am I saving nature?

So here are the headlines, warts and all. To start, here is a quick resume of what I’ve done in my current garden, which I’ve had since December 2014.

So far, I have:

  • removed a line of 30 mature and dangerous leylandii trees
  • cleared a dense thicket of suckering damson trees
  • planted 30 new native trees and fruit trees
  • dug a big pond
  • developed a vegetable plot
  • created three large bee borders, a tulip bed and a seaside garden
  • created an area of ‘wildflower meadow’
  • put in a composting area
  • laid turf paths.

Gosh, put like that, it doesn’t sound very much, and in fact the removal of so many trees to start with, while wholly necessary, actually removed a lot of cover from the garden (the winter roosting Wood Pigeons were probably not too pleased!).

But, being more kindly to myself, I can think with pride of the effort to hand-dig the pond, which is 15 metres (50 foot) long.

And I’ve increased the plant diversity in the garden from just over 200 species to just under 500, and all of them chosen because of their wildlife value.

The proof of the pudding, however, is how nature has responded. Well, I’ve been recording several of the groups of wildlife that visit my garden each week so that I am better able to answer that question. I can’t tell you if my woodlouse population is booming (they seem to be very happy, but I haven’t been counting them), but I can tell you chapter and verse on my bats, butterflies, dragonflies, reptiles, grasshoppers, stag beetles and birds.

For example:

  • A number of bird species are now regular in the garden which were absent of at least very rare to start with. I now have frequent visits from Mistle Thrushes, Stock Doves, Little Egrets, Grey Wagtails and Greenfinches. House Sparrows were nowhere to be seen at first, but now, with my feeders, birdboxes and veg garden (and hence aphids), I’ve had four pairs breed this year, and they’re onto yet another brood now. Here's one of my Stock Doves - no, not injured but sunning itself. My wildlife likes to take it easy.

  • I've had some rarer visitors, too, such as this Black Redstart

  • The total counts of dragonfly and damselfly are up 20-fold. Not surprising, you might think, given that I put in a large pond, but the garden already had three ponds when I arrived. However, they were just no good for wildlife.
  • Slow-worm and Grass Snake numbers have boomed. I didn’t find a single Slow-worm in the whole of the first year, and just a single Grass Snake; now in the fifth summer I can get daily counts of up to seven of each.
  • Common Blue and Brown Argus butterflies appear to have colonised successfully, and Wall Brown and grasshoppers are now regular in the new meadow, which today looked like this:

So has anything gone down? Well, yes, the Frog population seems to be struggling. It could be the boom in Smooth Newts; it could be the Grass Snakes. Also, the loss of the leylandii means that Goldcrests and Coal Tits now visit a little less frequently. And I still have no Starlings.

There’s lots more still for me to do: the area of meadow will eventually be four times the size, I’m going to put in another pond, my Bee Borders are yet to mature, and I want to make a Bat Cave (I’m not sure how, but it’s there on the wish list). These first four years have largely been about getting the layout in place, the heavy-lifting; from next year, the focus will shift to plants and growing lots of flowers from seed, and I’m predicting a big growth in my butterfly population

So, that’s me, but what about you? What successes – and challenges – have you had in your garden or local greenspace? We’d love you to respond to this blog and tell us your story. And don’t worry if you don’t have a big garden; little achievements in small gardens all add up across the country (in fact, I always say that each triumph in a small garden is all the sweeter!).

If you want to drop by my RSPB wildlife gardening blog, it is updated every Friday, and I'd love to see you there - www.rspb.org.uk/community/blogs/hfw

Parents

  • Why were the original ponds no good for wildlife?  I built a small pond last year and despite lots of plants there is no wildlife - apart from newts.  Any ideas on what to do?

  • in reply to Davholla

    I'm just about to build a small wildlife pond myself, so hope it will do as I hope... it seems that a small "beach "of pebbles is important so that wildlife can get down to the edge or out of the water easily. Also need native non-invasive plants, both marginal and floating,  not too deep and no fancy fish. Should know this time next year! Good luck with yours, Davholla, maybe just needs a tweak or two.

  • in reply to Oyster catcher

    We started gardening for wildlife just under one year ago after taking part in the big butterfly count and realising our garden, however beautiful, was slim pickings as far as our pollinator friends were concerned.

  • in reply to Sew Sue

    My husband gave me a copy of your wonderful book Gardening for Wildlife for my wedding anniversary last year, and after devouring it from cover to cover it has been my bible for renewing our garden into a wildlife haven. And in less than one year we're amazed at the  difference after planting a few pollinator friendly plants, allowing a few weeds to grow on, and yes nettles too. Log piles, a wildlife pond and of course plenty of bird baths at various heights, from ground to pedestal along with a bird table mean we have regular visitors from several bird species, many of which nest in the bird boxes we've sited along our enormous and very long conifer hedge garden boundary. The highlight of our success to date has to be a visit from a woodpecker family, mum & dad as well as their two fledglings who have since become daily visitors to our peanut feeders. My favourite are the starling babies though. There's such a clan of them now. From zero to over thirty in one breeding season. And dont they just love to splash around in my bird baths! I plan to put up starling nesting boxes this autumn and perhaps one day  I'll achieve my lifelong dream of witnessing a  starling murmuration first hand.  My target species to attract is goldfinches. I know they're in the area as one perched on a bush outside  my bedroom windowsill briefly, but despite adding nyjer seed to my feeders, still no takers in the back garden.  Frogs, newts and toads are resident too. One sunny afternoon we counted ten frogs at one time in our small wildlife pond. Recently, we  even  spotted a hedgehog which absolutely thrilled us. My son's making a hedgehog house for me now using the instructions in your book. He's also helping film progress and post as a short online movie for friends to 'look and learn" about wildlife gardening. We've liberated our small front lawn, after taking part in Plantlife UK 'No mow May' campaign. It's now a nectar rich oasis, and I'm in talks with the local council to consider turning a patch of the village green over to wildflowers.Insect life is plentiful and varied, several bee species, rose chafers and stag beetles, hoverflies, ladybirds and of course lots of butterflies and moths. Inevitably, there's aphids and blackflies but we're finding that these seem to get controlled naturally by the abundant predator species in our garden so we just leave nature to do her thing as far as pest control is concerned. It's working so far. This autumn we're looking forward to seeing which bird species visit our new mixed native hedge to feast on the berries. Only three metres long, but packed full with tasty treats. Fingers crossed for some great armchair birdwatching! 

Comment
  • in reply to Sew Sue

    My husband gave me a copy of your wonderful book Gardening for Wildlife for my wedding anniversary last year, and after devouring it from cover to cover it has been my bible for renewing our garden into a wildlife haven. And in less than one year we're amazed at the  difference after planting a few pollinator friendly plants, allowing a few weeds to grow on, and yes nettles too. Log piles, a wildlife pond and of course plenty of bird baths at various heights, from ground to pedestal along with a bird table mean we have regular visitors from several bird species, many of which nest in the bird boxes we've sited along our enormous and very long conifer hedge garden boundary. The highlight of our success to date has to be a visit from a woodpecker family, mum & dad as well as their two fledglings who have since become daily visitors to our peanut feeders. My favourite are the starling babies though. There's such a clan of them now. From zero to over thirty in one breeding season. And dont they just love to splash around in my bird baths! I plan to put up starling nesting boxes this autumn and perhaps one day  I'll achieve my lifelong dream of witnessing a  starling murmuration first hand.  My target species to attract is goldfinches. I know they're in the area as one perched on a bush outside  my bedroom windowsill briefly, but despite adding nyjer seed to my feeders, still no takers in the back garden.  Frogs, newts and toads are resident too. One sunny afternoon we counted ten frogs at one time in our small wildlife pond. Recently, we  even  spotted a hedgehog which absolutely thrilled us. My son's making a hedgehog house for me now using the instructions in your book. He's also helping film progress and post as a short online movie for friends to 'look and learn" about wildlife gardening. We've liberated our small front lawn, after taking part in Plantlife UK 'No mow May' campaign. It's now a nectar rich oasis, and I'm in talks with the local council to consider turning a patch of the village green over to wildflowers.Insect life is plentiful and varied, several bee species, rose chafers and stag beetles, hoverflies, ladybirds and of course lots of butterflies and moths. Inevitably, there's aphids and blackflies but we're finding that these seem to get controlled naturally by the abundant predator species in our garden so we just leave nature to do her thing as far as pest control is concerned. It's working so far. This autumn we're looking forward to seeing which bird species visit our new mixed native hedge to feast on the berries. Only three metres long, but packed full with tasty treats. Fingers crossed for some great armchair birdwatching! 

Children