What’s not to like about a DIY Nature Reserve?
As a new year’s resolution, we’re planning a new community nature reserve in our area of Leicester. If we’re successful, local residents will devote a small section of their garden to nature. We’re not asking people to go large on this: think of a social distance — two metres — and then imagine a square with each side two metres long — that’s all we’re asking for. It doesn’t sound like much but, if a thousand people devoted this four metre-squared of their garden to nature, that’s equivalent to the size of a football pitch and a small nature reserve.
This is roughly how the thinking behind the Felixtowe Community Nature Reserve goes (except they’re working in units of three square yards). We are adopting their idea in our locale on the east edge of Leicester and hope to create our own Evington Community Nature Reserve — all we need is a lot of people to join in.
Each household will shortly receive a flyer describing the scheme, along with a green pledge-card for them to display in their front window. The pledge is to create a space of at least four metre-squared in their garden for nature — sounds simple and hopefully is. Those displaying the pledge card on March 1 will receive a free pack of wildflower seeds to help get them started — just in time to sow them.
If the idea appears to be catching on, as a good number of pledge cards will testify, we’ll set up web-site and, as time passes and covid restrictions are lifted (fingers and toes crossed!), we’ll set about sharing good practice and perhaps start to develop some local green spaces as part of the reserve.
As to what people might do with their ‘social distance squared’, we’ve got some initial suggestions — many of which feature elsewhere on Little Green Shoots. In this article we’re suggesting five cheap and easy ways of creating your own nature reserve.
Let part of your lawn grow long
This is easy (no mowing!), cheap (free!) and rewarding. Just allow your grass to grow and, only a few weeks later, have fun identifying some of the wild plants and flowers you never knew you had. All manner of wildlife will pay your lawn a visit. We’ve seen grasshoppers, frogs and goldfinches and many more… (!). There are pros and cons — I cover these in another article here.
‘Grow’ a Garden Heap
Just choose your four metre-squared area and put your garden rubbish on it — hedge clippings, logs and branches are great for this but perhaps avoid grass cuttings for now. The waste matter will gradually decay away and feed the soil below and even better, bugs, grubs and worms will feed off it and you’ll have produced a lovely little shelter and larder for small birds and, maybe, in time, frogs, toads, slow-worms and even hedgehogs.
Sow wildflower seeds
Also very easy but even with a small outlay and a little effort needed, this can be very rewarding. Sow your seeds in March or September. First, choose your four metre-squared area — this could be an empty flower bed or one with empty spaces among other plants.
Second, break the soil up a bit (no need to dig it over). Then sprinkle your seed mix over the broken soil. Some people recommend walking gently over the area to mimic the action of grazing animals; others suggest raking the soil; I just agitate the soil a bit more and leave it be.
There’s no need to do much more, unless you have a very hot, dry spell, in which case a little watering might be beneficial. Nature should take its course and you’ll have a lovely display of flowers and hear the buzzing of bees and hover flies by the end of June.
As to which seeds to choose: a wildflower seed mix from your local hardware shop will be enough to get you started. Alternatively, like me, you could research and buy the seeds you like the sound of: field poppy; corn camomile; field cornflower; marigold; red campion; red clover; bird-foot trefoil are all great.
If you fancy being a bit bolder, you could sow the seeds into your wild lawn —in another article, I explain how we’ve done this.
Wild up your Hedges and Shrubs
Again this is free and saves unnecessary hard work.
Hands up all those who trim their hedges within an inch of their lives at least once a year. While this may look neat, it takes life out of your garden and might deprive you and your wildlife of flowers and berries. Plus: it’s hard work!
How about leaving your hedges and shrubs to grow this spring? Look to see if they flower and whether those flowers eventually turn into seeds or berries.
Flowers will provide nectar for bees and other beneficial insects; seeds and berries will feed birds.
After any seed heads and berries are eaten or die back, give the shrub a bit of a trim if you think it’s too big or needs a tidy. Damaged or dead branches can be trimmed too — remember to pile the cuttings around the base of the shrubs or on your log pile.
Of course, some shrubs need to be cut back at a particular time of year. Here are a couple of links with some good advice:
Click here for the RSPB’s guidance on hedges— once there, choose the ‘maintenance’ section.
Click here for advice from the RHS on pruning shrubs.
Stop using Weedkillers and Pesticides
This is better than cheap as it saves you money!! So why would you use these chemicals anyhow? Here are some alternatives that we use successfully in our garden.
Avoid Wasting Money on Lawn Feeders and Weed Killer — we have a patch of lawn that we don’t grow wild and we keep it green and almost weed-free by mowing frequently. You can dig out the occasional weed if you must. Rake a bag of compost over the grass to feed it each spring and autumn if you like— this will feed the lawn and help the roots retain water.
Use natural ways of dealing with pests like aphids — if chemicals were effective in getting rid of pests, then there’d be no pests by now. Pesticides kill the pests but also kill the predators that would kill the aphids by eating them and are also harmful to bees. Once you’ve killed off the predators, the pests will come back and you’ll have to use more chemicals…
We accept that aphids are a pain so we grow a range of different flowering plants to encourage predators into our garden. We also leave garden waste around so that beetles and earwigs have a good home. Ladybirds, earwigs, some wasps, hoverflies, beetles and small birds like blue tits will control levels of aphids. If the worst comes to the worst, we squish the aphids off our fruit trees. Click here for advice from the RHS on controlling aphids naturally.
There we have it — five easy ways to devote a small area to nature. All we need now is as many as people as possible to commit. In our next article, for the more ambitious gardeners, we’ll look at five more challenging projects to try!
