Structure in gardens makes a big difference to the variety of habitats, food sources and shelter that your are provides. Grazing, for example, is a vital tool in conservation as it promotes structure, redistributes and removes nutrients, reduces the vigour of coarse grasses and helps increase biodiversity. Grazing is unlikely to be possible in most gardens. The closest you are likely to get is mowing, but this isn’t so beneficial as it generally produces an even sward, leaves little structure and brings about an almost instant change across a whole area.
Nature street examples:
- Try to emulate grazing by not cutting your entire lawn all in one go. Experiment with different mowing patterns. Wildlife is not put off by straight architectural edges, or softer wavy lines.
- Remember that short turf isn’t always bad. It provides foraging space for blackbirds and badgers and allows shorter grassland fungi and plants to grow.
- Remove and compost grass cuttings to reduce nutrient levels in your lawn and encourage more flowers rather than just long grasses.
- Tall flowers with wide, flat heads can be perfect landing pads for butterflies. The stems can be used by dragonflies emerging from ponds, whilst lower growing leaves offer structure to ants.
- Perennial plants can be left in boarders and pots over winter. The hollow stems and old heads offer structure for invertebrates, such as ladybirds and lacewings, to shelter in over winter.
- Hedges cut in to an ’A’ shape (a wide base tapering to a narrower top) allows light to flood into the hedge whilst creating a wide space at the bottom of the hedge for creatures such as hedgehogs and toads to move along.