My Wild-life Garden Chapter 19: October 24th

I remember that maybe thirty years ago the tips for the week on “Gardeners' Question Time” included a strict injunction to clean and tidy all corners. Get rid of dead leaves and seed heads for fear they would harbour slugs. How fashions change! Now popular commentators such as Monty Don and Simon Barnes remind us of the importance of food and hiding places for invertebrates of all sorts if your plot of land is to be regarded as healthy. Slugs forsooth! Those piles of decaying matter are hosts to a myriad insects and beetles, and smaller, which I cannot identify and mostly cannot see. They do their own cleaning up; most of them prefer the compost heap to the seed bed. It is their place in the food chain that encourages amphibians, birds and hedgehogs.

Just at the moment the RSPB is conducting a big advertising campaign to get us to provide habitats for creatures. This is certainly something I have tried to do in the wild-life garden.

I have built up a pile of miscellaneous old branches and brambles and prunings in the corner between the wall and the garage. It has been going for over twenty years and does not seem to get any taller, so the base must be impenetrably compressed and matted. The idea was to provide somewhere where small birds can feel safe from cats and foxes. I have seen a wren inspecting it in the spring, but I do not think any have nested there. Goodness knows what else uses it. There is also a smaller pile deliberately kept of dry sticks and open-work construction. It may not have any “attractive” creatures, but all sorts of wood-borers must enjoy the dead wood.

Stick pile

The hedge was constructed so that there is a gully behind it, before the stone wall, which is now full of leaves and hedge trimmings. It would be a wonderful place for hedgehogs, but an area of many gardens almost entirely enclosed by houses is not easy for them to access.

An old shoe in the ivy thicket

I can't bear to throw away things which might be useful in nature. Deep in the thickets there are one or two old shoes hung up, and a cracked old planter has been stuck under a thorny bush. If I were writing an advert, or a column in a glossy magazine, I would have these used by finches or toads. So far spiders seem to be the most visible lodgers. But you never know what will turn up. My lovely little insect house (see the photo in Chapter 3 of this blog) was hanging up untenanted for three years before mason bees found it. Now they are well established.

Who lives under here?

I guess the main thing for habitat is the various unkempt thickets around the place. They will not all be left uncut, but some of them will be. It is good to know that whenever tiny frogs or newts emerge from the pond they will at once find cover.

Then there is the compost heap, of course. I rootled in it the other day and found woodlice by the hundred.

Do not expect wild creatures necessarily to follow your plans. But have lots of possible places, never use pesticides and don't be too tidy.