How to encourage Wildlife on to your allotment

There are a number of ways in which you can bring wildlife to your allotment or garden, starting with simple steps like not using as many chemicals from fertilizers to weed killers no animal or insect likes these chemicals and tend to stay away when too much is present. Another good way is to choose the right flowers as flowers provide pollen and nectar for bees, butterflies and other insects that perform the vital task of fertilisation – seed and fruit production would drop dramatically without them. Avoid too many highly-bred cultivars with big and blowsy or double flowers, most of which contain little or no pollen or nectar.

Adding a pond is also a very good way to attract wildlife such as frogs, newts, tadpoles and much more. Ideally dig a pond, but a container of water will suffice. The single easiest way to add, wildlife value to a garden is to install a pond however tiny - a large pot or even an inverted dustbin lid in an out-of-the-way spot will do. Ideally, do not introduce fish to a pond primarily there for wildlife (they will eat anything that moves), and if you can resist temptation, allow water plants to colonise naturally. Make sure ponds have at least one sloping side to allow creatures an easy way out. Most wildlife, including amphibians such as newts and frogs, like shallower water than is generally thought.

Garden birds are some of the most conspicuous of garden wildlife, and easy to attract with supplemental feeding. Over the winter supplementary food can mean the difference between life and death for many, especially when winters are particularly cold.

Make a rock garden: Steeply sloping ground, cliffs and rocky areas support their own specialised species of plants and animals adapted to surviving in areas with poor, thin soils. Their garden equivalents are rock gardens and gravel beds; planted well these are low maintenance, need little watering, and attract specialised wildlife such as mason bees, which are important pollinators.