The most wildlife-friendly style of them all. It happens to any garden that is left unattended for long enough, but it can also be created deliberately to give wildlife a safe heaven. As a garden style, it is a bit extreme, but any garden can be made more wildlife-friendly using its principles for inspiration.
1. Deliberate ‘untidiness’
This means accepting a lawn full of ‘weeds’ and leaving some of it un-mown till later in the summer. Using fallen leaves as mulch under shrubs, leaving fallen fruit on the ground, letting borders look ‘messy’ from autumn till spring, building log, rock and leaf piles.
2. Sources of nectar, fruit and seed
A proper wild garden only grows native plants. However, what the bees and butterflies need is an unbroken supply of nectar-rich flowers from early spring till autumn, native or not. For the birds, there will be berries on shrubs and seedheads on flowers, with bird feeders topped up all through winter and spring.
3. Water
In a wild garden a pond is a must with plants in and around it. Anywhere else, any source of water (a bird bath or any shallow bowl) is better than none, provided it does not dry out in warm weather.
4. Chemical-free gardening
In a garden with a lot of ‘goodies’ to eat the ‘baddies’, pests are rarely a problem. But if we must intervene, there are organic methods, like putting barriers over or around our most precious plants. And accepting some damage...
5. Locally in Kent
At Kent Wildlife Trust near Maidstone you can see these principles in action, and you might even feel inspired to enter your garden for their Wild About Gardens award.
Bumblebee taking nectar from Foxglove flower