How to Maintain Your Garden Wildlife Habitats: All Year Round

In the UK, our gardens make up roughly 433,000 hectares of ground (that's nearly three times the size of Greater London!), and every single bit of this land is important.

Even the smallest of gardens play a part, as they provide food and shelter for all types of animals: from small mammals, to birds, to bees and butterflies, and other insects too - there's always life buzzing around in our gardens, even in the colder months...

The big question is how to maintain it all year round? You want your wildlife-friendly garden to stay wildlife-friendly, but it can be hard to know the best practice for this all year round. Understanding how to maintain your garden, depending on the season, will give the local wildlife a haven that they can enjoy all the time.

Year-Round Garden Wildlife Garden Top Tips

Creating a suitable habitat for wildlife takes time and needs to be done all year round. Sustaining our gardens is mainly done through changing and adapting as the seasons change, but there are a few common things to do all year round in your back garden.

Observe and adapt; regularly check bird boxes, feeders, and bird baths, and if any are broken, fix or replace them. It's also worth taking this time to clean these too, as diseases spread easily through these garden items.

Throughout the year, know what local wildlife is using your garden and change the type of food you provide and the location of it to suit the needs of the species.

Where you can be, be sustainable by using sustainable or leftover materials (you can do so much with so many materials, including building a nest box!). When choosing plants, go for native plants as these are better for the animals in the UK!

Spring Wildlife-Friendly Garden Maintenance

It's time to spring into action; Spring is crucial in the animal world, for birds, insects, and small mammals, it's the beginning of active cycles.

To reawaken our gardens, we usually have a spring tidy up after we spend all winter ignoring our outside spaces (guilty!), but before you do this, remember that piles of fallen leaves, hollow stems, and rotting wood often become a home for insect species during the winter, you can also leave small patches of long grass, around your short grass, for them to take shelter in too.

It's best not to clean up until temperatures reach about 10 degrees Celsius during the day, and leave a few piles of dead material for amphibians and other animals to seek shelter in. By doing this, you support ground beetles, bees, and other insects.

If you want to add a bit of colour to your flower beds, pick native plants and wildflowers. Native species use less water, are a food source for insects, support local gardens' ecosystems, and require less maintenance, so they are perfect, especially if you've not got green fingers! Companion planting is a great way to create a lovely border for your garden.

Early Spring is a special time for many creatures, but especially birds, as it's the beginning of their breeding season. So, before Spring arrives, head outside and clean and install bird boxes to support wildlife with safe and suitable nesting sites. It's also important to provide food, like seeds and fat balls, at this time too.

Water is essential, so if you want to attract wildlife, get a small bird bath (a small tub will do just fine as well) and make sure it's always filled with fresh water.

Summer Care Tips to Attract Wildlife

As summer comes around, our days are spent mostly outside enjoying the hot weather, at the same time, our gardens - and the life within it - burst to life. The longer days and warmer weather are good for animals, but it does present some challenges that our gardens can help with!

During the summer, long spells of warm weather can lead to natural water sources drying up, which is bad for all species because water is a crucial part of life.

If you have a wildlife pond, keep it topped up, remove algae, and add aquatic plants for shade and oxygen; this will become a haven for so many species. If you don't have a small pond, you can use a shallow dish filled with fresh water, just keep an eye on this and refill regularly.

For plants and wild flowers in our garden, summer is peak time so it's important to give them some love. If you can, prune plants, trees, and shrubs a lot, this encourages growth and flowering, so there's always nectar and pollen for insects to feed on. The hot weather can lead to soil drying out, so water plants and add mulch around them to retain that moisture.

Autumn Wildlife Garden Tips

Autumn is the feeding season. Natural food sources begin to die down, and most gardens with feeders become important. During this time, it's important to provide wildlife with food so that they can survive the cold months.

For birds, set up feeding stations in your garden. You can have bird tables, hanging feeders, or ground feeders to accommodate different species.

If you can, figure out who you have visiting your garden, as all birds like different foods. Once you know, fill up the feeders with seeds, suet, and anything else local birds love to eat.

Winter can be tough, so use Autumn to set animals up with sturdy shelter and roosting sites. Hedgehog houses, bird boxes, and insect hotels are all perfect and, when placed in the correct position, provide safety for these creatures and other wildlife too. If you can, add in some leaves and straw to these structures too for insulation.

Winter Wildlife Garden Maintenance

Winter might seem like a quiet time for your garden, but there's still plenty going on beneath the surface. While many animals hibernate or slow down, your garden can still be a lifeline. Natural food sources become scarce, so keep your bird feeders topped up with high-energy foods like suet, peanuts, and mealworms to help birds stay warm.

Make sure bird baths or shallow dishes of water don’t freeze over - placing a small ball in them can help stop ice from forming completely. Don’t be tempted to tidy everything up; leaving dead stems, rotting wood, and leaf piles is a way of providing shelter for insects, frogs, and even hedgehogs.

If you built log piles or insect hotels earlier in the year, leave them undisturbed now as they’re likely housing sleeping creatures. Your garden may not look its best, but for wildlife, it’s the perfect winter retreat.