Providing shelter
You can provide shelter for small animals in your garden by adding natural habitat features like log piles, dense plants, and rockeries, or by installing purpose-built structures such as nest boxes, bug hotels, and small animal houses.
Natural Habitat Features
Encouraging natural habitats is a simple and effective way to provide shelter.
- Leave a ‘wild’ area: Allow a corner of your garden to grow wild with long grasses, leaf litter, and twigs. This provides cover, nesting materials, and attracts the insects that many small animals feed on.
- Create log piles and rockeries: Piles of logs, branches, and rocks create cool, shady nooks and hiding places for creatures like frogs, lizards and invertebrates. Place them in an undisturbed area, potentially near dense vegetation.
- Plant dense and spiky native shrubs: Using plants with dense or prickly foliage offers excellent protective microhabitats for small birds and other wildlife, buffering them from predators and weather.
- Add a water source: A shallow pond or birdbath provides essential water for drinking and bathing. Ensure there is a ramp (like a stick or stone) for small animals to climb out if they fall in, and clean it regularly to prevent disease.
Purpose-Built Shelters
You can also install man-made shelters tailored to specific animals.
Nest boxes: These are artificial hollows that provide nesting sites and housing for birds, bats, and possums, especially important in urban areas where old trees are scarce.
Bug hotels/insect shelters: These structures, made from layered natural materials like bamboo canes, straw, pine cones, and old wood, provide safe spaces for beneficial insects and solitary bees to rest and breed.
General Tips
- Avoid chemicals: Do not use pesticides or harmful chemicals in your garden, as they can harm wildlife directly or indirectly through the food chain.
- Protect from predators: Place shelters in locations safe from predators like cats and dogs, such as elevated areas or near dense, spiky bushes.
- Provide variety: A range of different habitats and plant types will attract a wider diversity of species.
- Be patient: It may take a few seasons for wildlife to discover and settle into the new habitats you create.