Doing our bit - hopefully

[Greenplover]

We have a pond with a hard liner, the bio edge ones, and to be honest it is very problematic. It had a few minor holes on the bio edge which seeped water, now fixed, the waterfall feature back flows and helps to drain the pond... grrr. We have made the decision to remove the hard liner and redo with good old fashioned liner. We currently have a few tadpoles and hope they emerge this year, as they have failed for the last 2

We have resident hedgehogs which we feed with spike food, or suitable table scraps. Watching them via the camera last week, we noticed some other visitors - 2 foxes!! The shed was built with hedgehogs in mind, underneath is very cozy for them.

My planting is very flower inspired and the buddleia has been base for a few humming bird hawk moths for a couple of years. I am always looking out for new plants to add for the benefit of wildlife. My little son grows sunflowers which we let go to seed after flowering. My hubby provides lots of well stocked bird feeders and have had nesting blue tits, black birds and collard doves. The sparrow terrace is not used, so we may re-site this.

We have LOTS of squirrels which we are not best pleased with as they are a tad greedy but that is an understatement.

We have bat boxes, but they are not in use.

My shed housed hundreds of ladybirds this winter and the one before, since we knocked down the old one and relocated with the new one, under the lime treees.

Can I do more??

My garden is reasonably sized and we are complete wildlife freaks, so the more visitors the better to be honest.

[Two_Sheds]

If you're down South, you should have some lizards and slow worms? They love to sunbathe under sheets of corrugated iron or black plastic, and slow worms will live in a compost heap. http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...post_8126.html

[Greenplover]

Slow worms used to live in the field opposite - until it got built on but I have not had any in the garden - YET!!!

Lizards - WOW I would love that, but not seen any other than on the coastal path.

I will certainly see what I can do to attract both of these lovely critters - Thanks.

[peanut]

Sounds to me like you've got it all covered and it sounds like a great garden!

All I'd mention.....and I bet you've already done it is to have a log pile and an area of uncut grass somewhere, for more creatures to live in.

A couple of plants that are great for wildlife are Teasels - Goldfinches love the seeds and you can top them up with niger seed when they've eaten all the teasel seed, and a flower called Veronicastrum/Culvers Root - Bees love it.

[Greenplover]

Oh yes!! We have a log pile underneath the hedge but sadly no long grass at the moment. The plan is to redo the pond and turf upto the edges (allowing for a shallow margin of course) and let the grass around it do it's own thing

If my DH had his own way the whole garden would be overgrown grass!! Tee Hee

Thanks for the enouragement

[smallblueplanet]

My planting is very flower inspired and the buddleia has been base for a few humming bird hawk moths for a couple of years. I am always looking out for new plants to add for the benefit of wildlife.

Verbena bonariensis is a goody for bees & hm moths.

...We have bat boxes, but they are not in use.

Did you see HF's earlier bat box thread? There was info there about places to site boxes.

[Claire72]

Hats off to you, I am impressed, and hope to follow in your footsteps. We have a few red squirrels visiting our bird feeder just now, so are going through peanuts like no-bodys business!!!