Christmas gardens - for wildlife
Native fruits, nuts, seeds and berries are the best way to feed our native wildlife, which is why gardeners, with their mania for tidiness, can actually be starving some of our smallest and loveliest creatures to death! If we didn't prune, cut back, uproot and dig over so much of our gardens, they would be better feeding places for wildlife. Don't despair though, you can get the best of both world's by planting native species that give winter interest and beauty to your green space.
Holly - is, of course, the winter king - brightly coloured, almost indestructible and fascinating to the eye. It's also a berry on which many birds will feed and insects and even harvest mice will over winter safe within its spiky haven. This is one reason not to cut holly right back to the main trunk, because you may allow predators like magpies access to the little creatures hiding inside, or chill them with cold air that kills them as they hibernate.
Guelder Rose has winter berries too, in a glossy red that looks great if cut for the table, and serves many of the over wintering small birds like robins and coal-tits with a meal.
Grasses - leaving the heads on native grasses provides seeds for many birds and small creatures as well as looking lovely when touched with frost.
Hazel, birch and beech - are trees that most of us can fit into our garden and provide not only nuts for mammals, especially squirrels and mice, but also winter leaves which, if swept into a pile and left, can over winter hedgehogs before being moved to the compost heap in spring.
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