Needed some positivity in life, so just upped and decided to rewild our front garden.
My wife and I have talked about making the front garden a wildflower meadow (which will be step 3 or 4), but my wife likes frogs so I thought I'd gamble on the chance that a little pond might attract some - as well as being a boon for wildlife in general.
We used the kids' old paddling pool, as you can see, and I'm following guidance found on various websites (e.g. rewildingbritain.org.uk, RSPB, etcetera).
Step 2 will be buying some native pond plants once we've got some rainwater in.
Once we've got the meadow going, I'm planning on seeing if I can recruit any neighbours. (First target is next door who has never once used their garden and only goes out to strim it down. I'm hoping I can tempt them with an offer of turning it into a meadow for free, seeing as they paid for our shared fence.)
Great tips! Thank you. I'll look in to Landlife. And I'll have to look in to a bog garden to see if we want one; beneath the turf and building rubbish, we have very hard, dry clay soil.
One of the recommendations I've seen twice regarding frogs is not to transfer stuff between ponds because of a risk of disease?
Hedgehogs is something I want to sort. We used to have visitors as our row of houses 'back gardens are linked via an old hedgerow to a big unused plot of land. However, I foolishly blocked up the hole the hedgehogs were using as we were also getting a lot of cats in via the hole who like to shit all over our lawn - which isn't great for our little kids playing in the garden (which they do basically year round). I'm going to restore the hole, but only the recommended 13x13 cm in the hopes that stops the cats.
Hedgehog hotel may be introduced into the hedges that are behind the pond in the picture. That might be step 7 or 8 ha.
We do have a little bee hotel (pre-built, 20x15x15 cm or so of stacked bamboo sticks with an aluminium roof) - but it's always just been overrun by spiders. Any advice?
We don't have any chopped wood - but I might put the hedge trimmings under the hedge instead of in the garden waste bin?