Nests and Nooks: How We’re Caring for Wildlife This Winter
As the nights close in and the weather cools, the wildlife in the garden is preparing for winter. The birds are very busy, in fact, they appear busier than in the summer with charms of goldfinches in search of fat-rich seeds of plants like teasel, thistle and burdock. The sparrows in the garden are as noisy as ever, taking up their spot in the evergreen bay bush, chattering away to each other. Sparrows are highly social birds and according to Michael McCarthy’s excellent, though, sobering book ‘The Moth Snowstorm’, sparrows “deeply need and depend on each other” and are often heard carrying out their “social singing” while they digest after a feed.
The sparrows, and other songbirds in the garden including robins, blackbirds and dunnocks, have new habitat to enjoy now that the 12-foot tall hedge has been ‘laid’ by staff, students and volunteers over September and October. Hedgelaying is a craft that has been practiced for hundreds of years. It is a way of creating a living barrier that is dense and impenetrable to livestock.
The trees and shrubs that can make up a hedge, including field maple (Acer campestre), hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), blackthorn (Prunus spinosa), hazel (Corylus avellana) amongst others, are split at their base, almost through the entirety of the trunk, allowing the hedgelayer to bend the tree and lay it over. This is repeated with each tree along the hedge until all are laying over in the same direction. The final work involves driving in hazel stakes and weaving horizontal rods to contain and neaten the work. The plants, impressively, survive this treatment and in the following year, send up new growth vertically, that can be trimmed once bird-nesting season has passed.
Hedges laid like this are incredibly good habitat for songbirds and wildlife such as mammals, amphibians and invertebrates. A diverse hedge itself will provide shelter and food at different times of year. The dense base of a laid hedge contains dead and rotting wood and leaves that provide damp spaces for toads and newts to hide in. Moths will also pupate in the leaf litter, providing an important food source for birds like robins. The Conservation Volunteers (TCV) have a great section on their website about hedgelaying, which is worth a read: https://www.conservationhandbooks.com/laying-hedges-ancient-craft/
For more information on how to better understand nature and work with it in the garden, rather than against it, join our‘Kinder Gardening: Beyond Organic’ workshop. Our workshops are free for Southwark residents, though all are welcome to attend.
We are also pleased to welcome our 8th pond to the garden. Ponds are one of the best ways to boost biodiversity in your green space and they’re a great way to help create a balanced ecosystem that will help reduce the impact of pests. New ponds can be created at any time of year and if you’ve only got a small space like a balcony or terrace, the pond can be as small as a washing-up bowl. You just need to make sure any creatures that get in can crawl out again by sticking some stones/rocks in that lead up to the edge. Plant up your pond with an oxygenator like hornwort (Ceratophyllum dermersum), spiked water milfoil (Myriophyullum spicatum) or Elodia crispa. For a small pond, we recommend plants like water forget-me-not (Myosotis scorpiodes), brooklime (Veronica beccabunga) and common monkey flower (Mimulus guttatus).
Interested in building a pond but still intimidated to start? Join our 'Simple Wildlife Ponds for Small London Gardens' session.
There are no toads or newts in the pond at the moment since common toads (Bufo bufo) only visit ponds for a short, sometimes just 1 week, mating season. The smooth newt (Lissotriton vulgaris) is found in ponds for a longer period (Feb-June), though the adults will spend summer and winter under a damp log. In the garden, we have a lot of areas where toads and newts like to hide in - such as the oak sleepers that are used as a plant display. There are also some purposefully placed logpiles that are perfect places for toads and newts to live in. We’ve added some of this autumn’s leaves to our new logpile, which fill in the gaps and create a blanket of warm and moist nooks and crannies.
On the topic of leaves, we all have our fair share of them at the moment. But rather than viewing them as a nuisance, leaves are a brilliant resource that is free and plentiful for gardeners. In nature, leaves would usually stay where they fall under a tree, providing shelter and as well as nutrients once invertebrates and microorganisms start breaking down the leaves.
A layer of leaves can help protect the roots of more tender plants so if they can be left, they can provide a benefit to the gardener and wildlife alike. What’s more, most slugs prefer to eat decaying leaves and plant matter, so removing most of it could push slugs to eat more of the live plant parts that you try to keep them away from! However, there are instances where the gardener might prefer to remove leaves. This has been helpfully condensed into a guide called The Complete Guide to Autumn Leaves by the creators of the Garden Wildlife Podcast, a brilliantly informative and entertaining podcast by Ellie and Ben who are professional gardeners and have a passion for wildlife.
In this particular episode, Ellie highlights four reasons why you would clear leaves in the garden including on lawns, around plants prone to rot (alpines), areas with low growing bulbs and diseased leaves. Other than this, leaves behind a shed or scattered across a border pose no harm. Here at Walworth Garden, there’s smatterings of leaves across borders and underneath shrubs but we regularly remove them from the top of plants, ponds and from areas where we have a lot of low-growing plants such as Soleirolia and Saxifraga.
At the end of the day, if you think you can leave your leaves where they fall, do! But if you must tidy, try and keep them somewhere on site (add them to your compost or log pile) as they are a brilliant resource for you and your wildlife.
Want to discover more about how we garden with wildlife in mind? Join our upcoming ‘From Fungi to Foxes: Gardening for Wildlife in London’ masterclass.
*Free workshops are available for London Borough of Southwark residents over the age of 19 only. Each resident is eligible for one free workshop per academic year (October 2021 - July 2022). Check your eligibility here.
About Sarah
As our trusted Garden Supervisor, Sarah uses her knowledge to care for the plants across the Walworth Garden plant centre and site, and gives excellent advice to visitors and customers. She’s currently completing a Level 2 Horticulture Diploma.