Help out hibernators at home

Up for some wild DIY this winter?

Hedgehogs need homes just like humans, so making one for them is a great way to encourage them into your garden. By building a hedgehog home, you could create a safe space for your prickly neighbours to hibernate over winter.

Follow the link below to find out all you'll need to provide the hedgehogs on your patch with the shelter they need to survive through to spring.

Planting night-scented plants in autumn or spring is a great way to attract moths, and therefore bats to forage after they have emerged from their long hibernation. Examples include evening primrose, honeysuckle and common jasmine. It is also worth considering caterpillars of moths as well, who love to feed on plants such as common hawthorn, ivy and fuchsia and overwinter in dead plant matter.

Overwintering pollinators will also wake through their hibernation on sunny days, so why not plant some winter flowers such as Hellebore, Erica, Mahonia and snowdrops on your patch to sustain them through to spring?

Follow the link below to find out how you can make your patch into a haven for night-time flyers.

Amphibians will be looking for damp, sheltered habitats to hibernate through the winter. Examples include tussocky grass, compost heaps, hedgerows, scrub, and log piles. Old terracotta plant pots, even if broken, are also useful for frogs to shelter in when dug into the ground and do not cost much.

Frogs sometimes like to hibernate at the bottom of ponds. If you have a pond in your garden, make sure there are holes in the ice and that your pond plants are getting enough light.

Follow the link below to learn more about how to create and maintain a pond for the benefit of wildlife on your patch.

Leave an untidy part of your garden to benefit ladybirds and other hibernating insects. Leaves and deadwood piles or bug hotels provide important, natural habitats. Working with nature allows the ecosystem to work. Allow some parts of your grass to grow long, such as along the borders.

Bath Organic Group leave many parts of their garden unattended to support insects and benefit wildlife, therefore improving their food growing. They allow the grass to grow in their orchard and scythe once per year. The untidy parts can be just as beautiful as the rest of the garden, looking natural and allowing nature to be itself.

Find out how you can do your bit for wildlife at home through natural solutions and sustainable practices.

Support slow worms and other reptiles by building a hibernaculum or other suitable habitat features at home in your garden or in community spaces. Suitable features include compost heaps, rockeries, log piles and tussocky grass. Ideally build them in areas that receive some sun in spring and are left undisturbed throughout the winter.

Manor Woods Valley local nature reserve have carried out many surveys on the site and found that many slow worms were present on site. To support slow worms, other reptiles and invertebrates, volunteers built a hibernaculum in the rough grassland where they thrive, creating more habitat. 

Follow the link below to find out all you need to build your hibernaculum this winter.