As autumn creeps into winter, you’ll possible begin seeing much less wildlife exercise in your backyard – nevertheless it’s a time when many guests, together with birds, small mammals and a few bugs, want us most.
“Plants are the bedrock of a wildlife-friendly garden, and that includes throughout the winter, despite many being reduced to their skeleton,” says Adrian Thomas, gardening professional on the RSPB (rspb.org.uk) wildlife gardening professional.
“There are two key benefits that plants offer: cover and food. Getting through the long, cold nights is challenging for garden birds, so plants that offer dense safe cover will allow them to snooze safely out of the elements, saving valuable energy. Evergreens such as holly and ivy are ideal.”
When it involves crops offering meals, Thomas provides: “An easy starting point are the plants that offer food that we can easily see, such as berries and winter flowers. Garden trees that will often hang on to their fruits well into winter include various rowans, such as Sorbus vilmorinii and ornamental crab apples, while ivy berries continue to ripen sequentially through winter and are rich in fat.
“In terms of winter nectar and pollen for insects such as bumblebees that may be on the wing in warm winter spells, winter honeysuckle, winter-flowering cherry and mahonia are good choices,” he continues. “And you’d be amazed what titbits birds will continue to find in deciduous hedges and trees, food such as moth eggs, so try to delay hedge cutting and tree pruning until the tail end of winter.”
Wildlife-friendly crops
As effectively as the various crops which produce berries for birds, together with cotoneaster, pyracantha, berberis and yew, be sure you plant species the place the berries ought to final past Christmas, reminiscent of skimmia and guelder rose (Viburnum opulus). Fieldfares and different birds could go to gardens to feed on windfall apples when it’s actually chilly.
While ivy stays the bane of some gardeners’ lives, its berries are a useful supply of diet for birds in late winter and early spring, when meals is scarce. It has been mentioned that one bundle of ivy berries has almost the identical quantity of energy as a bar of chocolate, gram for gram.
Adult crimson admiral butterflies feed on nectar-rich crops reminiscent of Verbena bonariensis, which remains to be visibly in flower in lots of gardens at the moment of 12 months, whereas the caterpillars eat leaves of the widespread nettle. Native crops together with crab apple, elder and birch additionally create pure meals provides for birds over the winter, the RSPB suggests.
Shrubs
Winter shrubs together with Viburnum x bodnantense, Lonicera fragrantissima and Christmas field (Sarcococca hookeriana) not solely present meals and shelter for wildlife, but in addition give off probably the most superb scent.
Seedheads
“Think about the value that comes from leaving the seedheads of herbaceous plants standing through winter, everything from lavenders to Verbena bonariensis, rudbeckias and sedums. They’ll look great in frost and will harbour insects and seeds,” says Thomas.
Leave architectural seedheads reminiscent of teasels for seed-eating birds, together with chaffinches and goldfinches, which use their skinny beaks to extract ripe seeds from the spent flowerheads for meals.
Bulbs
There’s nonetheless time to plant late winter and early spring-flowering bulbs together with snowdrops and crocuses, which can show a magnet for any bees venturing out throughout late winter sunshine. Other small bulbs that are tempting for wildlife embrace scilla and chionodoxa.
In pots
If you have got a small backyard, pollinating bugs will head hungrily to your nectar-rich container crops in late winter and early spring. The nodding heads of hellebores, which seem at the moment, not solely present a refined hue to any association, however are additionally an excellent meals supply for rising queen bumblebees.
Winter-flowering heathers reminiscent of Erica carnea ‘Winter Snow’ are among the many hardiest of dwarf evergreen shrubs and are perfect for brightening up winter containers, in addition to being a magnet for early-flying bumble bees
Hedging
Hedges make nice shelter and supply meals for birds, and now is a good time to plant species reminiscent of yew and hawthorn, earlier than the bottom will get too arduous. You’ll lower your expenses by choosing bare-rooted hedging or rootballed timber and shrubs, says the RSPB.
Lawns
You might imagine they’ve gone out of trend, however in late autumn and early winter, lawns will be invaluable to blackbirds and track thrushes, who enterprise on to your grass looking for leatherjackets (the larvae of craneflies), earth worms and fallen fruit, the RSPB provides. Longer grass supplies shelter and egg-laying alternatives for the bugs on which birds and different wildlife feed.
Consider leaving the dandelions in your garden, which offer nectar and pollen in late winter and early spring, when queen bumblebees are popping out of hibernation.
Think in regards to the future
Looking forward, shrubs like honeysuckle, lavender and ivy can all be planted in autumn and are perfect for offering meals and protection for birds, bugs and different wildlife, in accordance with specialists The Greenhouse People (greenhousepeople.co.uk).
Some bee varieties can nonetheless be seen round your backyard in autumn, as they put together to enter their hibernation part in winter. Autumn flowering crops which offer an ideal supply of pollen when meals provides are harder to return by embrace Japanese anemones, crimson cauli and crocosmia, that are nonetheless blooming in a heat autumn.
Source: www.impartial.co.uk