This is the sixteenth in a series of articles from the Eco Team at St Columba’s, which are also published in our church magazine.

Have you been watching Sir David Attenborough’s Secret Garden?

I have enjoyed this series, focussing on the wildlife that may be in our own gardens often without our knowing they are there.  The colours and life stories captured in the BBC’s photography, along with David’s knowledgeable and gently-spoken commentary have been a delight to watch.  Even a suburban garden can be visited by foxes, hedgehogs, insects, and birds of all sorts.  The BBC teamed up with the Open University to create an interactive website where all family members can find out more about garden wildlife, https://connect.open.ac.uk/secretgarden/#interactive.

The series also showed how some of the homeowners had made small changes to help animals thrive in their gardens. The BBC shares some tips here.

Ideas include:

• Not using pesticides, as they can kill more animals than intended
• If you have room, a pond can become a home for frogs and tadpoles, as well as providing drinking water for birds and small mammals
• Leaving an area unmown for May or longer provides wildflowers to feed bees, butterflies and other insects
• If you have room for a compost heap, it can provide a home for hedgehogs, frogs and worms, as well producing free fertiliser for your flowers and vegetables
• Making a small hole under the fence 13cm round enables hedgehogs to move from garden to garden
• Trees and hedges can provide both food and shelter, as well giving variety in the garden
• If you have bird-feeder, it should be cleaned regularly to reduce the risk of spreading disease

It was good to learn more about the world of nature all around us here in Britain, and gave much food for thought.