Thread by @_joelashton

As a little thank you to everyone who has decided to hit that “Follow” on my profile, here’s a few tips that you can follow to help attract more #wildlife to your own #garden: 🧵

1. Don’t cut your hedges/bushes at this time of year - birds in particular will eat the berries.

2. Leave some long grass around the edges of your lawn. Many insects/caterpillars in particular will overwinter at the base of this vegetation. You can always cut back in #spring when things warm up.

3. If you feel the need to clear the leaves from your garden, don’t put them in your green bin, make a pile of them in a corner of the garden. Lots of insects again, along with 🦔 will use these piles for cover/shelter.

4. If you cut back any branches on trees etc., cut them up and add them to your 🍂 pile. They will provide additional cover and stop the leaves from blowing around the garden, as well as providing a valuable habitat - rotting deadwood.

5. Don’t cut back all your dead stems in your flower borders - these stems often provide overwintering habitat for 🐞 and other insects such as earwigs. Plants such as Teasels and Verbena also provide seeds for Goldfinches and other birds. Wait until #March for these works.

6. Make a compost heap. As well as your existing 🍁 pile, recycle some pallets or something similar to contain your garden and food waste. This can provide additional habitat for animals such as Grass snakes and Slow worms if you add some carpet/roofing felt to keep it warm.

If you have a pond, leave some vegetation around the margins for young frogs to hunt through on milder winter days. The heads of plants such as Common Fleabane and Purple Loosestrife (some of the plants I plant around my #wildlfieponds) provide more seed for birds. Cut in March

8. Plant bare root trees and shrubs. Now is a perfect time to plant native trees/shrubs in your garden, as the dormant season is from November until March. They have a much higher chance of establishing at this time of year, rather than planting in the summer.

9. Don’t pull the ivy off your wall/tree! Ivy is currently providing a valuable food source in terms of nectar for the last of the year’s insects such as Wasps, Red Admirals and Hoverflies. Butterflies such as the Brimstone also overwinter in Ivy. It’s also a 🦇 & 🐦 roost too!

10. And finally (I could go on..! 😆) Don’t be too tidy! Forget what the neighbours think, the #wildlife will thank you for it! Hope this helps and thank you to you all for doing your bit. Oh, and don’t forget to share this and help spread the word 😊🙏

11. And FINALLY finally(!), here’s a link to my YouTube channel where there’s tonnes of videos on all of this and much more… 😊👍 Thank you!

youtube.com/c/WildYourGard…

For anyone wondering - I’d recommend cutting back in March, before birds start nesting and after all the berries have been eaten by birds such as our winter visiting Redwings and Fieldfares.

Just in case anyone thought I was making this up…! 😆 Look closely..! 🫢🥰

The berries are also loved by Wood pigeons and other birds…