Wildlife Garden Design

    Wildlife

    Friendly

      Gardens

Creating a wildlife friendly garden is not just doing "no gardening" and letting the brambles grow. By providing shelter for wildlife, choosing certain kinds of plants, and looking after your garden in a particular way, you can encourage another whole display of colour, movement and sound. Once you start, wildlife gardening becomes much more than just making friends with the local birds, hedgehogs and dragonflies. It's a way of connecting to the whole web of life. Children love digging for worms, chasing butterflies and watching as ladybirds scuttle across their fingers, so wildlife gardens are perfect for them too.   

How can a garden designer help?

A good garden designer can create habitats, food and shelter for many different types of wildlife including birds, insects, mammals and amphibians. Let me design a garden for your home in sympathy with the natural world.

"What is a garden without the sweet song of a robin or blackbird, the drowsy hum of bees, or the air acrobatics of a dragonfly?"
Kim Wilde (pop star, gardener and writer)

Wildlife gardens are more beautiful than those without wildlife. The movement of birds, bees, dragonflies and butterflies creates movement, Spiderwebs and bird nests adorn the garden. A wildlife garden is alive!

A garden design creates the specific habitats that wildlife need to shelter and breed.

Food plants are provided to support both the young and the adults

All of this can be achieved within a formal or

an informal garden. Some of the best gardens indeed combine both formal and informal elements.

A wildlife garden in Dorset

A formal Wildlife Garden in Somerset

A living willow structure

What does a garden designer do?

The perfect garden doesn't just happen, it needs planning. With the right design, your garden can be a source of pride, joy and satisfaction for years to come. Designing your dream garden involves a series of stages, from initial consultation, through the design and planning of every detail and expert advice on implementing the plan. When you hire me, you don't just get horticultural expertise and innovative ideas. You get a thoroughly personalised garden design based not on preconceived ideas but on your wishes for your garden.

Questionnaire

Before I visit you, I can send you out a questionnaire. The answers you give will help me understand what you want from your new garden. It's a chance to talk it over with your partner or family, and forms the basis of your first consultation.

Visit

I will begin by listening to your needs, make a thorough inspection of your outside space and consider all practicalities, including the best habitats, nectar and food plants for the wildlife. We can discuss the most wildlife friendly perimeters and patios. As long as the right ingredients are included to support the birds and insects, the garden design can be either formal or informal.

Survey

I or a surveyor will do a site survey, which will accurately map your house, immovable’s such as trees, outhouses and drains. This will form the backbone to all further drawings and can be made available to the hardlandscaper.

Concept Plan