How to start a wildlife garden from scratch
Use the blank canvas of your garden to make a home for wildlife.
Use the blank canvas of your garden to make a home for wildlife.
Few of us can contemplate having a wood in our back gardens, but just a few metres is enough to establish this mini-habitat!
This brown seaweed lives high up on rocky shores, just below the high water mark. Its blades are usually twisted, giving it the name Spiral Wrack.
This yellow-brown seaweed grows in tufts at the very top of rocky shores. Its fronds curls at the sides, creating the channel that gives Chanelled Wrack its name.
So-named because its gnarled trunk can split as it grows, the Crack willow can be seen along riverbanks, around lakes and in wet woodlands. Like other willows, it produces catkins in spring.
Planting herbs will attract important pollinators into your garden, which will, in turn, attract birds and small mammals looking for a meal.
This brown seaweed lives in the mid shore and looks a bit like bubble wrap with the distinctive air bladders that give it its name.
This yellow-brown seaweed grows in dense masses on the mid shore of sheltered rocky shores. It is identifiable by the egg-shaped air bladders that give it its name.
A bushy brown seaweed that appears bright blue underwater.
This brown seaweed lives in the lower shore and gets its name from the serrated edges to its fronds.
A true wildlife 'hotel', Honeysuckle is a climbing plant that caters for all kinds of wildlife: it provides nectar for insects, prey for bats, nest sites for birds and food for small…