How to make a wildlife corner to help with pest control in your garden
A garden is both a pleasure to have and a responsibility to maintain especially if you are a first-time gardener. Throughout the seasons your garden will be presented with different kinds of weeds or pests that may cause harm to your veg or flowers. Keep in mind that there’s nothing wrong with allowing weeds to grow freely or hosting a few slugs or snails. It’s important to keep learning so you can choose the ways that work for you.
Whether your garden is big or small it can provide a home for birds, insects, pollinators, mammals and plants. Leaving wilder areas of your garden to grow naturally will allow them to thrive and help the environment as a result.
By making natural predators welcome in your garden you won’t need to rely on weedkillers and insecticides. Birds and frogs will eat slugs and snails, while ladybirds will eat aphids, greenfly and blackfly – keeping them away from your plants.
Here are five simple ways you can create a haven for wildlife in your garden.
Let it Grow!
Leave your wildlife corner grow freely and let nature take over. This is great for the environment and saves you time weeding.
2. Provide plants for pollinators
Bees are incredibly important for the environment, so we can all do our bit at home to help them. The general rule of thumb is to plant as many different species of flower as you can – the more the merrier. Listed below are a few suggestions that bees will love from spring through to late summer.
3. Let the grass grow longer than usual
Leaving grass grow longer is an ideal habitat for insects, and plants like daisies have a chance to flower and produce nectar. Try extending the length of time between each cut to at least four weeks or as long as you can
4. Attract birds to your garden
Birds are natural predators which will help keep pests away from your plants. Planting hedges, shrubs and trees will provide shelter and nesting sites, if this isn’t possible try a bird box. Birds need water like us, providing fresh water in a shallow container is a great way to entice them into your garden. Remember to place it somewhere shaded and where birds can have a good view of potential predators.
5. Create a compost patch
Composting has many benefits for your garden, in particular working to enrich the soil. But for the wild corner of your garden, it will provide an important home for frogs, woodlice, worms and lots of other insects. Encouraging these insects to your wild corner will attract natural predators to this area, and away from your plants or veg patches. You can create a homemade compost patch with kitchen and garden waste which, once composted, can be placed around your plants to help support growth and also prevent weeds.
Top tips:
As much as it’s rewarding to create a space that wildlife can thrive, you also need to put your own needs and desires for your garden first. You can still implement ways of encouraging natural predators to your garden to control pests without the wildlife areas needing to take over the majority of you space.
Start slowly and build up your space to see how the wild space naturally evolves. Longer grass, a few plant species and a bird feeder are an excellent place to start. From there, you can watch how the garden grows (quite literally) and add other elements over time.
