Gardening.ie

Hi

Have you any ideas about how to make your garden a haven for hibernating wildlife?

Thanks

Wherever you live and whatever your garden is like it will have hundreds, if not thousands, if not tens of thousands, of invertebrates living in it – insects, spiders, millipedes, centipedes, and lots more. The vast majority of these life forms are microscopic and we’ll all live our lives without ever seeing them or knowing their names. But these tiny organisms form the basis of most other life in our gardens.

Log piles don’t need much space, and provide ideal homes for a wide range of invertebrates. Make a log pile in the corner of your garden with logs as large as you can manage. If you don't have wood in your garden,don’t pinch logs from the countryside and woodlands where they will already be doing their good work. Instead get them from a fuel merchant or a farmer selling logs.

Stack them neatly, leaving a few access gaps for larger species of insect and invertebrates to crawl in to. Then forget about it - the habitat requirements of many of the species in rotten wood will not benefit from exposure to light and air.