Summer is here at last! June is when you can make the most of your garden and enjoy the long summer evenings. There’s also plenty to do to help wildlife in June when there are lots of baby mouths to feed.
Keep the bird baths topped up
Water is so important for wildlife and when the sun shines it’s easy to forget that birds and small mammals need to find watering holes.
Insects and pollinators, such as bees, also need water but it needs to be shallow so they don’t drown. A shallow dish full of stones/marbles with water covering ¾ of them means that the pollinators can stand without drowning. Please make sure it’s safely out of the way of small children.
Keeping fresh water for birds to drink and bathe in is also important. If birds are able to keep their feathers clean it means they can regulate their body temperatures and also it helps their flight, making it easier to escape from predators. Remember to keep any water at a higher level if there are cats or dogs around.
Damp Havens for Amphibians
While you might not always spot amphibians in your garden, they may still be there. Creating a log pile in a shady corner makes a perfect little haven for amphibians such as frogs to cool down safely. Half bury the bottom layer of logs and fill in nooks and crannies with leaves and moss.
Garden Planting
If you’re thinking of buying any new plants, why not make it a rule to choose those flowers that provide pollen. As a general rule, cultivars with big or double flowers contain little or no pollen whilst flowers that are open make it much easier for pollinators to get to the pollen. Foxgloves and viper’s bugloss are perfect examples.
Allium, aquilegia vulgaris, buddleja, echinacea, dahlias and lavender are just some of the plants that are great pollinators.
Lawns
After No Mow May, it’s still good to keep a section where ‘weeds’ such as daisies and dandelions can prosper. They are important pollinators and the longer grass means that some species of butterflies and moths might start to breed in our lawn. If you’re very lucky you might even attract grasshoppers!
Baby Birds
In early June in particular gardens are full of baby birds. If you see a fledgling sitting alone in your garden, resist any temptation to touch or move it. The chances are that its parents are around and just keeping out of site. The best course of action is to keep out of the way and its parents will probably return to feed and make sure it’s safe.
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