How To Encourage More Wildlife Into Your Backyard

However, if you’re not setting up the right environment for the local wildlife, then you might find yourself scratching your head in confusion over the lack of birds and other furry animals.

Here are some helpful tips to encourage more wildlife into your backyard so that your outdoor space can be enjoyed through many sights and sounds.

Plant trees and shrubs

First and foremost, you should look at what your backyard is lacking when it comes to shrubs and trees. These are vital parts of the garden that will encourage wildlife into the backyard. 

Trees of varying sizes can be useful to put in to help entice birds of all shapes and sizes, as well as furry animals who like to climb tall trees.

Shrubs are also great for providing some nesting areas for animals who need a bit of security and shelter. Shrubs in general can be great for shaping your backyard space and improving its appearance, so it’s definitely something that you should look to implement into the outdoor space.

Create habitats

Habitats are a great way of creating a home for the local wildlife and encouraging them to stick around for longer periods of time. While many small creatures can create their own shelters, it can be helpful to help them along with some pre-made options should they stumble upon them.

There are many ways in which you could create these habitats. From wooden boxes for birds to stacking fallen wood that makes a shelter for larger animals.

Install a pond

Ponds are great for feeding wildlife as they’re a water source for all. While ponds can be a bit of a challenge to install into the garden, they are something that can make a lovely feature for the space and can be enjoyed by yourself as well as the wildlife itself.

If you have kids and pets running around the place, then it’s worth getting the pond covered. This can provide peace of mind that you’re not going to have any little ones falling in and potentially coming to harm.

A pond attracts a great deal of wildlife, especially ones that love to live in the pond itself. You might want to get some fish to add to the pond in order to attract other wildlife and possible food sources for the fish.

Provide food sources

Food sources are an important part of encouraging wildlife into your backyard. You’ll definitely want a good amount of food in the space but it should be relatively self-contained so that it’s not attracting pests to your home and possibly into your home too.

There are plenty of food options you can provide to your wildlife. From seeds in bird feeders to rotting fruit and even compost heaps.

Compost heaps can provide a great advantage not just for the nutrition of your soil but it can also attract insects who are able to help with the gradual decay of your composted contents. It’s good to offer a mixture of food sources throughout the garden space so that it helps encourage wildlife of all shapes and sizes.

Plant wildlife-friendly plants and flowers

Wildlife-friendly plants and flowers are certainly important to help encourage wildlife into your garden. Not only that but they can help create a much more vibrant and welcoming space for your guests whenever they come over. At the very least, they’re great for you and your household to enjoy.

When figuring out what plants and flowers are best for the wildlife, it’s useful to know which ones are best for the type of wildlife in question. That could include:

• Hawthorn – great for birds
• Sunflowers – ideal for the bees
• Honeysuckle – loved by birds and bats
• Sedum – useful for bees and butterflies
• Buddlejas – attractive to butterflies

Adding this assortment of wildlife-friendly plants is great for bringing more of that much-loved wildlife into the garden.

Monitor your wildlife

To help ensure you’re doing the most and finding success in getting wildlife into your outdoor space, you should be monitoring the wildlife coming in.

You might end up doing a few things from this list to encourage wildlife to your garden but if they’re not appearing, then it might be worth looking at other ways like a professional habitat restoration service. You’ll only know when to do that if you’re monitoring the wildlife.

Make use of rotting wood for small animals

Rotting wood is great for those small animals like hedgehogs and insects who are looking to find shelter from the wet and cold weather. Habitats like rotting wood and fallen branches or trees are something that you want to try and leave undisturbed where possible.

With rotting wood, it’s unfortunately not the most attractive thing to look at but it can certainly bring in more of the wildlife that you might be after. Be mindful of what you’re clearing up around the yard and try to keep this particular debris from your garden in place for all the smaller animals to enjoy.

Let your grass grow

Letting your grass grow is something that can often be hard to do when you’re a perfectionist or like a nicely mown lawn. However, it could be impacting the number of wildlife you’re getting in your garden. 

It’s all about finding the balance between and if you want wildlife in your garden then sometimes it’s good to let the grass grow. Maybe begin by doing less mowing during the cooler months of the year to see what wildlife appears.

Encouraging wildlife into your garden space is important and it can also be a good way to do your bit in helping the environment continue flourishing and restoring some of the damage that we’ve caused in years gone by.