On day 12 of advent we’re offering the chance to win a hand painted fern bin and tissue box from Master the Art, worth £180.
30.11.2023 - 08:11 / houseandgarden.co.uk
Autumn at the garden of St Giles House
If you want to help wildlife in your garden this winter – and really, why wouldn’t you want to attract birds and bees into your garden at a time when they need help the most – there are plenty of simple steps you can take that are neither expensive nor require a complete redesign.
In fact gardening for wildlife is more sustainable — and more fun — when done resourcefully, you can use entirely found materials to create habitats and construct everything from bird boxes to bug hotels from things you can find lying around your house and garden. A winning weekend activity if you’re a nature nerd and even more so if you have little ones to help you.
I sat down with the incredible naturalist and conservationist Lucy Hobson, who’s known as Lucy Lapwing (@lucy_lapwing) to her many Instagram followers, to find out how to make your garden more hospitable to all creatures great and small over the next few months. And if you want a fun, expert and accessible resource for learning about wildlife in the UK, Lucy’s instagram is a must-follow!
When it comes to wildlife using your garden, you’re only really limited by space and location – as well as your definition of ‘wildlife’. Birds are an obvious group of animals you can encourage and support with your garden, but there’s lots of other wildlife you can help that you might otherwise overlook.
Invertebrates – beetles, butterflies, moths, hoverflies and bees – all need somewhere to hibernate in winter. Some hibernate as adults, some as larvae (i.e. caterpillars) and some as eggs. By creating a complex and varied structure in your garden, you’re creating lots of opportunity for things to tuck away in the winter. Then there’s the wildlife we don’t really
On day 12 of advent we’re offering the chance to win a hand painted fern bin and tissue box from Master the Art, worth £180.
Dramatic and elegant, amaryllis (Hippeastrum) are bulbous indoor plants that cheer us through the coldest months. The huge flowers bloom atop tall, sturdy stems, opening like colourful trumpets, as if about to blast away the winter blues with a clarion call.
Day 10 of our advent prize draw gives entrants the opportunity to win a DNA’24 DB26 Bread Knife from Savernake worth £199. Please note you must be over 18 to enter this prize draw.
Our eleventh prize is a Gold Smokebox, worth £105 from Lambton & Jackson.
Day 9 of our Christmas advent prize draw gives you the chance to win WOLF-Garten’s Bypass Loppers worth £119.99.
The Isles of Scilly are like an idealised version of England – where the sun always shines, the food is wonderful, there’s no traffic and no one locks their doors! To say the sun always shines is an exaggeration, but they’re among the sunniest and mildest places in the UK – sea breezes mean it’s never too hot or humid and thanks to the Jetstream, they almost never have frost.
Hidden behind the door for day 8 of our advent prize draw is a bundle of tools from gardening brand Wilkinson Sword, worth £114.97.
Enter our day 7 prize draw for your chance to win ‘his and hers’ Buckingham wellington boots worth £109.98 from Harbour Lifestyle.
Offering some of the closest beaches to London, Essex has a reputation for kiss-me-quick resorts and dormitory commuter towns. The truth is that this flat county, defined by slow-flowing rivers, estuaries, salt marshes and oyster beds, abounds in subtle charm. The Romans settled in Colchester and evidence of their occupation can be found in many coastal settlements. In the 1560s Flemish protestants brought their silk-weaving skills to the town, while the Dutch reclaimed swathes of land for farming.
Our sixth advent prize draw gives readers the chance to win a variety of seed mix grab bags from Seedball, worth £105.
Robins can lose up to 10% of their body weight keeping warm over a single winter’s night. With reports that the La Nina weather system may bring harsh cold spells in winter 2022-23, added to the problem of disappearing food sources and habitats over the UK, robins – and other garden birds – could do with some support this season.
Our fifth advent prize draw comes with your chance to win a Deluxe Hedgehog House XXL, worth £124.99 from CJ Wildlife.