Why Somerset Gardens Are So Special

There is something quietly wonderful about a Somerset garden in early summer. The hedgerows hum, the swallows dip over the Levels, and even a small patch of grass behind a semi-detached house can be a genuine lifeline for local wildlife. The good news is that you do not need a big budget, an acre of land or a degree in ecology to make a difference. Some of the most effective changes cost nothing at all — just a little time and a willingness to let things get slightly untidy.

Our county gives us a head start. The mild, damp climate of the Somerset Levels, the wooded slopes of the Mendips and the rich farmland in between mean we are surrounded by birds, bees, hedgehogs and butterflies that simply need a bit of habitat. Let us look at how families here can give them exactly that.

The Magic of a Messy Corner

The single easiest thing you can do is stop tidying one patch of the garden. Leave a metre or two at the back of a border, behind a shed or along a fence to grow wild. Let the grass grow long, allow nettles and dandelions to stand, and resist the urge to cut everything back in autumn.

What happens next is remarkable. Long grass shelters frogs and beetles. Nettles feed the caterpillars of red admiral, peacock and small tortoiseshell butterflies. Seed heads left standing over winter feed goldfinches in January when little else is available.

• Cut carefully: if you must trim, do it in late spring or early autumn and leave the clippings in a heap for a week so anything hiding can escape.
• Add a log pile: three or four old branches stacked in a shady corner become a home for beetles, fungi and hibernating hedgehogs.
• Skip the slug pellets: they harm the very creatures you are inviting in — thrushes, frogs and hedgehogs all feed on slugs.
• Leave a gap: a 13cm square hole at the bottom of a fence connects your garden to the next, creating a hedgehog superhighway.

Water: The Cheapest Wildlife Magnet Going

If you buy one thing this year, make it a shallow dish of water. Even a washing-up bowl or a plant saucer sunk into the soil will draw in birds, bees and hedgehogs within days.

Keep it shallow — no more than 5cm deep at the edges — and add a few smooth stones so bees can land safely and hedgehogs can climb out. Bird baths should sit roughly 60–90cm off the ground, near a shrub or hedge so birds have cover while they wait their turn. Refresh the water every couple of days in warm weather, and give the dish a scrub each week to stop algae building up.

If you have room, a small barrel pond is a lovely weekend project. Sink it level, add a ramp of stones for wildlife to climb out, and within a season you may spot damselflies and pond skaters. Somerset's damp air means you will rarely need to top it up.

Native Flowers Without Spending a Fortune

You do not need expensive bedding plants. Native and near-native flowers give bees and butterflies far more nectar, and they are far cheaper to grow from seed.

• Foxgloves and honesty: scatter seed in a shady spot in autumn and let them self-seed year after year.
• Ox-eye daisy, field poppy and cornflower: a £3 packet of wildflower seed covers a decent patch of bare soil. Sow in spring or early autumn.
• Lavender, rosemary and thyme: buy one plant and take cuttings in late summer — you will have a dozen for free by next year.
• Honeysuckle and buddleia: a single shrub will scent the whole garden and pull in moths and butterflies all summer.

Grow in clumps rather than scattergun patches. Bees prefer a generous block of one flower type to flit between — three lavender plants together are worth ten spread about. Skip the highly bred double blooms; their petals are so tightly packed that bees cannot reach the nectar.

Homes From Things You Already Have

Wildlife homes can be homemade, and children tend to enjoy building them. A tin can with the label removed, stuffed with bamboo canes and hung under a sheltered wall, makes a perfectly good solitary bee hotel. A stack of old roof tiles or broken pots in a damp corner suits frogs and newts. A compost heap, kept slightly moist, is a five-star slow worm retreat.

Turn a corner of the garden into a loggery by half-burying a few logs upright in the soil. This creates the damp conditions that beetles, centipedes and fungi love. It looks deliberate rather than scruffy if you edge it with a few stones.

Start This Weekend

You do not have to do everything at once. Pick one job — the water dish, the wild patch, the seed packet — and let it settle into the garden for a season. Next spring, add another.

Keep a little notebook or a note on your phone of what you spot. The first time a hedgehog pads across the lawn, or a bumblebee disappears into the foxgloves, it stops being an abstract idea about conservation and becomes something your family genuinely looks forward to. That is the real reward: a garden that is a bit more alive, a bit more interesting, and a lot more Somerset.