How To Encourage Wildlife to Your Garden

Here are a few ideas to help you encourage wildlife to your garden.

It's half term and the sun is shining! Here are a few fun ideas that you and your family could try out, to help wildlife feel more at home in your garden.

Make fun ice cream cone bird feeders

You will need:

• Ice cream cones
• Pencil
• Peanut butter
• Small bowl
• Birdseed
• String

Instructions:

Start by poking a hole through the bottom of the cone using a pencil. Thread a piece of string through the hole and tie a knot at the end. Spread a small amount of peanut butter around the rim of the cone. Place some birdseed into a small bowl and dip the peanut butter coated cone into the seeds. Hang it off a tree and you'll slowly start to notice the birds (and squirrels!) eyeing it up.

Get stuck into some planting

What you need:

• Pebbles or little stones
• Plant pots with holes in the bottom
• Compost
• Seed or bulb
• Watering can
• Water

Instructions:

Put a few pebbles in the pot, so that you can't see the bottom of it. Sprinkle compost on top of the stones — fill up a quarter of the pot. Lay a seed or bulb on top of the compost and in the centre of the pot. If you're planting lots of seeds, spread them across different pots and if you're putting more than one seed in the pot, they'll need equal amounts of space between them. Add compost until the pot is three quarters full. Push the compost down gently and place the pot in a sunny place. Water your seeds or the base of the plant (not the leaves) every evening.

Create a wormery

What you need:

• Large clean glass jar
• Sand
• Some soil – damp is best so add a little water if it hasn’t rained recently
• Peel from vegetables such as carrots or potatoes; tea leaves from a used teabag; grapes and dead leaves
• Black paper

Instructions:
Wash the jar carefully, then let it dry for about 10 minutes. Add a layer of sand at the bottom — about 1cm deep. Now add a thick layer of the soil, then another 1cm of sand, then another of soil until you are nearly at the top. Pop the worms in the jar and add the vegetable peel, tea, leaves and grapes. Now ask an adult to help you put a couple of holes in the jar lid, screw it on and wrap the jar in the black paper. Leave the jar in a cupboard for two weeks then take the paper off and have a look at what the worms have done.

What’s happened?
The worms have eaten their way through the peelings and moved around the jar, mixing everything together and making the soil really healthy and full of good stuff. This is why worms are so important in the garden.

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