Ways to attract wildlife that can help your garden

An ecologically friendly garden should be a haven for wildlife. Here are some ways to entice birds and beneficial insects to your garden.

• Birds are a constant source of pleasure in the garden, bu they also eat seeds and insects.
• Provide food in the winter and water when it won't freeze to reap the benefits of visiting birds.
• Evergreen trees and shrubs give shelter from winter winds and are used as nesting sites by many species of birds in summer.
• Provide a choice of other nesting sites: simple bird boxes, purple martin houses or dense hedges.

• Hummingbirds can be attracted to the garden by planting nectar-rich flowers.
• They also love feeders with sugar syrup. To make, dissolve 50 millilitres (1⁄4 cup) of sugar in 250 millilitres (1 cup) of water. Either boil the water briefly or leave overnight.
• Never use food colouring in sugar syrup for hummingbirds.
• Hummingbirds eat small insects and spiders. They also help in the pollination of many of the plants they feed on.

• Butterflies and moths can be encouraged to visit by growing nectar-rich plants.
• They prefer small fragrant flowers. Both insects rarely visit those with trumpet-shaped blooms or large showy flowers like roses, even though they're scented.
• Butterflies are also attracted to water sources, such as a small mud puddle, or flat rocks sloping into the water of a garden pool. Butterflies will congregate there to drink.

There are the many beneficial insects that feed on some of the pests:

• Ladybird beetles, or ladybugs, feed on aphids.
• Praying mantises hide on the stems of plants and snatch passing insects out of the air, but eat the good ones along with the bad.
• Ground beetles, the black or brown ones, prey on many pests that live in the soil, such as cutworms and root maggots.
• In addition, there are hundreds of other species of hoverflies, parasitic wasps, lacewings, beetles and bugs that are beneficial.

• Beneficial insects can be encouraged to take up residence by planting an area of nectar-producing plants with small flowers, including clover, goldenrod, alfalfa, yarrow.
• You can also plant these in a flower border or as edging.
• Many of these beneficial insects are available from mail-order sources.

There are all kinds of wildlife that can help your garden grow and stay healthy. To attract them, be sure to make your garden enticing with food, flowers and shelter that the animals need to survive.