How To Attract Wildlife To A New Build Garden
One of the most exciting things about buying a new build house is the blank canvas of a garden you get – it’s completely yours to make your own! While planting flowers, installing garden furniture, and keeping a tidy lawn are nice ways to give your garden some personality, there’s something so special about seeing your creations attract the attention of creatures great and small too.
Sometimes, local wildlife needs a little nudge to be attracted into a new build garden. So we have plenty of tips below to help it along its way. Before you know it, your new garden will be bursting with flora and fauna – playing host to visiting birds, bees, and bugs, as well as some furry (and prickly!) friends too. Sound like the dream? Here’s everything you need to know…
How To Attract Wildlife To A New Build Garden
Diversity Is Key
A sure-fire way to ensure birds and animals avoid your garden is by giving them little to no biodiversity in which to explore.
Don’t make that mistake!
By planting shrubs, bushes, hedges and even trees, you’ll be providing wildlife with cover, nesting sites, and even food. It goes without saying that these additions are sure to make your space look more interesting, too.
Rowan, crab apple, elder, blackthorn and hawthorn are all good small trees and shrubs that flower blossom and berries, thereby attracting birds, insects, and small animals.
Don’t forget the bird feed too - they really appreciate it and you can get many varieties that attract varying kinds of garden birds.
Choose The Right Flowers
Insects, such as bees and butterflies, love certain types of flowers – some of which also happen to look very beautiful! Lavender bushes are, according to a study by the University of Sussex, the most popular type of plant for bees. And with the bee population increasingly in need of protection, there’s no reason not to provide them with the extra help they need.
Other plants bees are attracted to include blue borage, abelias, foxgloves and lilac.
With butterflies, plants such as buddleia, red valerian and sedum are the most successful at attracting them. Why not follow this handy guide to spot the different kinds of butterflies?
This is a great activity for children, too, to help them appreciate the wonders of wildlife. So, get the gardening gloves on and start growing stunning flowers in your space together!
Make A Home Away From Home
Whilst the birds and the bees are relatively easy to attract to your garden, provided you maintain your newly-planted shrubs and hedges, there are some types of wildlife that are much less likely to visit your garden without the right specific conditions.
Hedgehogs, for example, can be encouraged into your garden with the aid of hedgehog houses. Thick vegetation, like leaves and logs, will also encourage them into your garden, as this is the perfect place for slugs, worms, and other food.
Ensure you’re being patient when trying to encourage them to your garden – it can take up to a year before you might find a spiky friend nesting in your homemade house.
Having a body of water in your garden is also the ideal way to encourage wildlife to make your garden their home, too – no matter how small! There’s potential for insects such as water boatmen and crane flies to be encouraged to your garden this way, as well as frogs. It can also be used by birds as a bird bath – the possibilities are endless!
It’s not just a nice idea to attract wildlife to your new build garden either, it’s vital! Whether it’s hedgehogs, birds, bees, or bugs – ecological protection is very important to us here at Miller Homes and we’re all for encouraging our purchasers to look after the environment where they can. Protecting local wildlife plays a big part in this. When we build our new homes, we do so with sustainability in mind, this means including hedgehog highways, swift bricks, and other nature-friendly options within our developments. We always love to see those who move into our homes make these choices too!
Have you made any adjustments to your garden to encourage wildlife in your new build garden? We’d love to see your efforts! Tag us on our social platforms, via Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.
