English Woodlands Announce Advice On Attracting Wildlife Over Winter

Most animals are migrating or hibernating during winter, making attracting what remains a great achievement for any gardener. English Woodlands have released advice on achieving this to help customers achieve gardening success year-through.

Leyland (I-Newswire) January 15, 2013 - Wildlife becomes much rarer in the UK winter. Mammals are mostly hibernating, and around half of the bird population migrates south, usually to Africa, during the winter. Many gardeners work to attract what wildlife is still active during the winter, helping inject more life into their gardens. Considering this English Woodlands have released advice to help gardeners attract winter wildlife to their property.

With informed structuring it’s easy to create an environment friendly to local wildlife. Ground animals will happily find cover and food in thick hedgerows, whiles birds will commonly use them to nest and feed year-through. Hedge features not only provide encouraging environments to wildlife, with around eighty per cent of woodland birds able to nest in them, but also help with structuring a garden, providing shade and breaking gusts of wind.

Beyond the specific specimens you plant there are more ways to optimise a garden for the local wildlife. Consider avoiding the final grass trimming of the summer and autumn season. The longer grass vastly improves the environment over the colder months, with insects habiting the grass above ground level for longer, with the lengthy blades able to retain heat more successfully. The invertebrates in the grass then attract birds and ground animals able to find sources of nutrition. The lack of insects is one of the primary reasons that birds migrate en masse at the start of each winter season, so keeping insects from dying or burrowing for warmth will help extend the feeding season of many local birds.

Water sources can be easily made available. A dish of water with apple slices and lettuce will attract many mammals and birds. Water features can be kept from freezing by floating a ping pong or tennis ball in them, and holding a heated saucepan of water after freezing will create a hole large enough for most creatures to drink from.

Additionally, gardeners can grow a variety of plants with winter berries to help feed wildlife naturally. Holly berries are iconic and in demand, particularly among the popular Robin. Leaving out fatty foods and seeds such as nyger and suet will help insulate most species of birds. A more natural feeding solution is to let some plants go to seed, instead of simply pulling them as their season ends. This creates more nutritional sources for all seed eaters. Beds that have been emptied should have the soil turned over, revealing more invertebrates for birds to feed on.

English Woodlands are a supplier of trees, plants and planting accessories. They have been trading for almost a century, and pride themselves on offering excellent plants and planting advice to consumers across the UK.