Wild flowers are an essential habitat providing an important food source for many insect and pollinator species. Species such as butterflies and moths play an important part in hedgehog’s diets as caterpillars make up a large part of their diet. Other insect species, like beetles that hedgehogs also feed on, rely on habitats such as wildflower patches to both feed upon and live. If you are ever lucky enough to find hedgehog droppings in your garden, you may notice that they are slightly shiny and you may well see the remains of beetle wings which gives the droppings their sheen.

It isn’t always possible for everyone to have big wildflower meadows however, but you can create wildflower patches both small and big scale to suit the size of your garden or space. Whether it be pots in porches, tubs on window sills or totally replacing your lawn with wildflowers there are lots of different options.

Our Ipswich Wild Learning Officer transformed her car parking space recently, making use of all the space available, showing that even small spaces support wildlife. Why not have a go and create a wildflower patch, pot or swathe. Check out our guide for more information here. 

Spring is a popular time of year to have a big garden tidy turning our attention to our gardens. However, badly timed garden tidy ups, in both spring and autumn, can be damaging for our wildlife disturbing nesting sites and can remove habitats for species that hibernate impacting many species. May however, is a great time of year to do some gardening for wildlife but remember it’s good to be messy.

Whilst some might prefer our gardens to look neat and tidy, wildlife prefers things a little rough around the edges and gardens that are wild and messy, giving us the perfect excuse to leave part of our gardens to run wild.

Hedgehogs are no exception to this and leaving leaf litter lying in your garden can hugely benefit them as they rely on leaves for their nests and leaf litter also provides the perfect habitat for a huge wealth of invertebrate species on which hedgehogs feed.

Having piles of standing deadwood in your garden is another way in which you can create a wild corner in your garden and it benefits hedgehogs as again, species on which hedgehogs feed such as many beetle species, rely on deadwood as a food source and habitat to live. Wood piles can also in turn provide a fantastic nesting area for hedgehogs in the winter months. As the dead wood rots and decomposes, releasing nutrients into the soil, wood can be replaced to maintain a stand of deadwood from year to year. 

Another way in which you could be a little messy is to leave the weeds be. This is probably one of most tempting things for gardeners to remove but so many species rely on weeds for a source of nectar and are also food sources for caterpillars of many species of butterflies and moths, which comprise a big part of a hedgehog’s diet. Nettles for example are the food source of peacock, small tortoiseshell, red admiral and burnished brass butterfly caterpillars. So why not be a little brave this spring and be messy and let the garden go a little wild? The hedgehogs, and so many other species, will certainly thank you for it.

Hedgehogs are generalist feeders meaning that they have a varied diet with the main items on a hedgehog’s menu being invertebrates including slugs, caterpillars, earwigs, beetles, worms and millipedes. They can also occasionally eat carrion, frogs, eggs, fruit and young birds. 

Hedgehogs have many different hazards to contend with, including encountering chemicals in our gardens and green spaces. The use of weed killers, slug pellets and pesticide sprays can all have detrimental effects on hedgehogs, as killing the invertebrate species on which they feed can deplete food sources and they can cause a build-up of harmful toxins in hedgehogs if eaten.

Luckily, there are alternatives that can be made, opting to go organic instead, making our gardens safer for hedgehogs. Some of these alternatives are weird and wonderful and include broken egg shells, coffee grounds and bark chippings, which act as a deterrent to slugs due to the rough textures making it hard for slugs to move across the surface, copper tape which emits a slight electric shock to those that try to slime across the surface and also garlic water sprays which works due to the Allicin content in garlic that acts as a natural deterrent to both slugs and aphids, too. 

Water in an essential part of life and provides species such as freshwater invertebrates and amphibians with breeding grounds and shelter, to a way for birds to bathe and rid their pesky parasites, to providing lekking areas where insects congregate which in turn feed species such as bats, to providing muddy surfaces of which butterflies obtain minerals. Having water sources in your garden is one of the best things you can do for wildlife.

Whether it be by leaving dishes of water out, or going bigger scale and creating ponds to provide water, they come as a welcome relief to hedgehogs who will be sure to be thirsty on their 2km- 3km nightly travels in the summer. You might even have some surprise visitors stop by such as this Tawny owl, captured taking bath in a pond in Ipswich. Find out more about creating a pond here.  

With Hedgehogs being able to roam an impressive 2km in urban areas and 3km in rural settings in an evening, hedgehogs can cover great distances, but they can come up against several challenges on their travels, often being stopped in their tracks due to the physical barriers that we surround our homes and gardens with. 

It’s important for hedgehogs to access gardens in order to forage, find mates and make nests and a fantastic way to help hedgehogs to gain access to gardens is by creating hedgehog holes. These are simply points of access that can be created in different ways, such as creating a hole measuring at least 13cm by 13cm simply digging a hole under a fence, cutting a hole in or bending back wire fences, increasing the height on your fence or gardens gates or cutting holes with handsaws and drills on your garden boundaries.

Whilst we should all play a role in helping hedgehogs in our own green spaces as best we can, it’s also important to take time to enjoy hedgehogs and celebrate them. Why not start conversations with neighbours and friends about our spikey friends and pass on any top hog tips to that you might have. To help you celebrate hedgehogs, here’s one of our favourite clips from our trail cameras in Ipswich. Although these hedgehogs are displaying confrontation behaviour, we like to think this hedgehog is doing a hoggy moon walk.