Whether your garden is big or small, you can make a difference by making your it more environmentally friendly.
Even the tiniest area can be left for wildlife. A good idea is to plant native wildflowers like Oxeye Daisy, Marigold and Cornflower. Planting these will attract butterflies and bees into your garden.
One of our gardening clients had the tiniest of ponds built and filled it with pond weed. It became a haven for newts, frogs and even dragonfly larvae.
For larger gardens, native trees provide much needed shade and can help to cut noise pollution. They can be a place of shelter and rest for local birds.
We had hedgehogs in our garden. They used to stumble past our feet on warm summer evenings and make their way through a hole in the fence and into our neighbours garden. I had an image in my mind that they were following a well worn trail through fence holes and getting fed by all our neighbours – each of us thinking these wonderful creatures were ‘our’ special wild friends. They lived in a mound of garden waste. We never had the heart to rake away their perfect habitat.
You could always grow fruit and vegetables. Take half for yourselves and leave the rest to the birds and other wildlife. I quite like this idea of sharing.
We always encourage our clients to have an area for compost-making. Compost bins are inexpensive and can provide years of wonderful home-grown compost. A great place to put all those leftover peeling and raw food off cuts.
Whatever you decide to do, enjoy your garden, especially now that summer is almost here.