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Wildlife garden - where to start?

adele1956
07/02/2015 18:06
My garden can only be described as 'wild' in the sense that in the 20 years I have lived here apart from plant a forsythia, through which an old honeysuckle rambles in the summer, and add a pond (now rather overgrown, but home to frogs) about 10 years and three miniature conifers (now about 8ft tall) and a veg patch about 14ft x 12ft I have done nothing apart from periodically hack the grass down in the summer. However the birds seem to like it, visiting the feeding stations from dawn to dusk. At times the garden resembles starling central (can have up to 20 at any one time), a pair of magpies visit regularly through the day as do a couple of blackbirds, pied wagtails, robins, sparrows, a blue tit occasionally stops off en route to next door's feeders and this past week two missel thrushes have started to visit. Jackdaws and rooks also visit daily and have been observed teaching their young the best way to feed from the suet ball feeders suspended from an old washing line. I would really like to improve my garden but don't want to deter the birds who do visit and would love to attract more. Where do I start? The garden is approximately 120ft x 20 ft narrowing to about 15ft and ends in a gravel driveway. The garden faces just north of east so has a shady area close to the house once the sun passes over and in winter parts of the garden nearest the house receive little direct sun. We live on the outskirts of a small town in the west country with open fields about 500 metres away. Sorry to ramble but any ideas what I do to encourage more birds and yet have a garden I am happy to entertain in (once we have locked up the two resident bantams of course)?
  • 16/02/2015 18:58 in reply to Jason

    Well I managed to take a couple of shots from an upstairs window just after 1pm which gives an idea of the orientation of the garden and the wilderness that it is.  

  • 16/02/2015 19:13 in reply to adele1956
    This is from the back door, veg patch and pond to the left. Beyond the forsythia is overgrown grass, driveway and 2 compost bins beloved by the chicks. Would like to add structure - bushes, small trees? but soil is usual west country clay with a sloping limestone layer 6-12 inches below the surface - great for ammonites though.
  • 17/02/2015 21:39 in reply to adele1956

    Adele, I am sure that with sourcing the best types to plant, that you could have that garden looking lovely.

    Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

  • 05/05/2015 16:49 in reply to Catlady

    Hi Adele, we've got a similar sized garden to you. (Although ours is south facing). What we did was divide the garden in two and through the middle we planted fast growing trees. Three birches, a couple of rowans, flowering bird cherry, hawthorns and one or two others (we also have two ash that planted themselves, which we kept). Next to the trees we planted various shrubs attractive to birds and butterflies. And a few smaller plants that like the shade and woodland plants. On either side of the trees are lawns. We leave the borders completely natural although we clear out obtrusive weeds. We leave ivy growing and any wild flowers that find their way in. The sunny part of the garden we use for ourselves. The trees were planted 7 years ago and are now very tall and fill out the middle section (a winding path goes through them), so it feels like a mini woodland! The birds love it. I have a snowball tree (really a shrub) that is close to the house where I hang all the bird feeders and they love it. Butterflies love the buddlieas and bees love the honeysuckle.Trees do truly make a huge difference to a wildlife garden!