There are insects in your flower patch, rabbits burrowing around your bushes and birds pecking hungrily at the grass. And it’s all the sign of a well-maintained garden.
Or at least, it’s the sign of a garden maintained in a highly specific way. It’s called wildlife gardening – and it could add some extra panache to your grounds.
Wildlife gardening is essentially the horticultural equivalent of letting it all hang out, every overgrown bush and hastily cut patch of grass, resulting in a greater number of creatures and creepy crawlies congregating in your grass, bushes and flowerbeds.
Studying your plant life
According to national newspaper The Telegraph, one of the first self-proclaimed wildlife gardeners was Jennifer Owen, who documented her 30-year project to study the wildlife in her garden in a book entitled Wildlife of a Garden: A Thirty-Year Study.
Owen started recording the various wildlife in her garden in 1972, at a point when most people didn’t think about the creatures in private residences’ gardens. But by the time she finished her study, she recorded 2,673 named species of plants, fungi and animals, and plenty more that had gone previously unrecognised.
How to get a wildlife garden
The requirements for a wildlife garden are simple. All you really need is a permanent number of woody plants (plenty of shrubs and hedges) and to avoid a compulsive neatness.
We’ve got a commitment to giving you the best grounds you could want. So whether there are foxes wandering around your patch of grass or not, you’ll always have a garden to be proud of when you use our service.
