Wildlife gardening in the headlines: the year just gone, and the year ahead

Having safely navigated into the New Year, I thought I'd take a moment to look back at what hit the headlines in 2017 that affects us as wildlife-friendly gardeners.

Wildlife and pesticides

Concern about the impact that pesticides are having on pollinating insects got even stronger in 2017. Much of this is to do with agricultural chemicals, but a study by The University of Sussex and The University of Padova tested the leaves, pollen and nectar from 29 different 'bee-friendly’ plants from garden centres and found that only two plants did not contain any pesticides. In fact, one (a Winter Heather) contained ten pesticides.

Neonicotinoid insecticides were detected in over 70% of the plants. Studies in 2017 showed that 'neonics' affect egg-laying in queen bumblebees, amongst many other fears about how these chemicals affect insects.

So those of us who go out into garden centres, buy our plants, and believe that we're doing good things for wildlife because we don't use chemicals in the garden, are actually buying plants already laced with cocktails of the stuff. The study concluded that "Gardeners should seek uncontaminated plants by growing their own from seed, plant-swapping or by buying plants from an organic nursery".

To their credit, B&Q became the first retailer to remove all nine neonicotinoid pesticides from its flowering plant range. The ban will come into effect from February 2018.

And it was B&Q that brought out a superb report in 2017, 'The Nature of Gardens', exploring in detail how wildlife in the UK benefits from our gardens. It is a step change in how the DIY/garden centre business is approaching garden wildlife.

Feeling good

More studies emerged in 2017 that showed the benefits to your health of having nature around you. For example, a study by the University of Exeter, the British Trust for Ornithology and the University of Queensland found that vegetation cover and seeing wild birds were positively associated with lower levels of depression, anxiety and stress.

Another study by the folk in Exeter found that people who feed birds regularly feel more relaxed and connected to nature (I must be the epitome of 'laid backness', given how much food my birds get).

Also, the University of Surrey showed that planting hedges between pedestrians and the street could be one of the best ways of reducing exposure to exhaust pollution. We might have guessed that, but it is good to know for sure. Anyway, here's a photo of nature's facemask:

So what should you plant in gardens to help wildlife?

The latest results from the Royal Horticultural Society's Plants for Bugs study showed that if you want more plant-dwelling minibeasts, which are so essential to the food chain, they key is to grow more plants, and especially native species.

This was interesting because the previous results looking at what you should grow to help pollinators showed that native or 'near-native' plants – the latter being plants from elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere – were pretty much as good as each other.

Wildlife and new housing

In the November 2017 Budget, the Government announced its plans to build 300,000 homes a year in England, and of course new housing is a huge issue in the other three devolved nations as well. We have a great team at RSPB headquarters looking to engage with all the decision-makers and policies, but from a pure wildlife gardening perspective, one of the RSPB's key pieces of work is something I'm involved in, trying to work with developers to help them do more for wildlife when new housing does go in.

That's why we've been working with Barratt Homes and David Wilson Homes at Kingsbrook, just east of Aylesbury, to help them set a new standard for wildlife-friendly housing on what is a huge development. 2017 was the first full year of construction, and by July features so far installed by the Barratt team include:

• an orchard, plus many other trees
• the first of the Sustainable Urban Drainage swales and ponds
• 58 of the new Barratt/Manthorpe/RSPB Swift brick
• eight House Martin cups
• 13 bat bricks
• bat-friendly lighting
• Badger tunnels
• and the first of the wildflower verges.

I'll have more results to report from Kingsbrook in 2018, but here is a photo of the first of Kingsbrook's three villages that I took back in the autumn.

So how well is garden wildlife doing?

Sadly, a study by Butterfly Conservation found that even thought butterflies are tending to do badly everywhere, those in urban environments are struggling even more than their rural counterparts.

There is also more worrying news about Invasive Non-native species having an impact on our wildlife. There are great concerns about the spread of the disease Xylella fastidiosa, first found in Europe in only 2013, and with the potential to affect a range of wild and cultivated plants.

Great vigilance will also be required to stop the colonisation of the Asian Hornet, but at least there is the very recent good news that scientists have been able to synthesise the sex pheromone of the queens, which may mean lures can be set to draw in the males.

But what we do know is that efforts by gardeners can have very real and lasting effects on making the world around us richer in wildlife. In my own garden, I'm now three years in, and I have managed to increase the number of butterfly records by 43% since year one, and my dragonfly and damselfly totals are up ten-fold. Little things can make big differences.

So roll on 2018, let's have a year in the garden to remember, and remember that in three weeks time we'll find out just how well all our birds are doing in the Big Garden Birdwatch.