Wildlife garden ideas

Our wildlife gardening guru, Adrian Thomas, gives his top tips to help you turn your outside space into a brilliant nature-friendly garden for relaxing, entertaining and doing your bit for the planet.

To make your outside space wildlife friendly, fill it with plants

Use old bananas to give autumn butterflies a sugary treat.

Building a bat box gives them somewhere safe to roost, raise their pups and sleep during the day.

Offer solitary bees five-star accommodation with an easy-to-make bee hotel.

Create a multi-storey bug hotel that's full of all sorts of natural materials, providing hidey-holes for creatures galore.

Build a cosy hedgehog home, and encourage these prickly yet adorable creatures to rest, hibernate and raise their hoglets in your garden.

Growing climbing plants is a brilliant and beautiful way of bringing life to your dead vertical surfaces, like a wall, fence or pergola.

Make time to enjoy the wildlife that you’ve helped. After the hard work you’ve put in, you deserve to reap the rewards for your efforts!

Put up a starling nest box in your garden and give them a safe home where they can roost and raise their chicks.

Set up a nest box to give summer-visiting swifts a place to nest and breed year after year.

Use leaves to make a warm and cosy winter sleepover for hedgehogs and toads.