RSPB Gardening for Wildlife

If you’re like me and have a head like a sieve, this next section is a simple month-by-month aide-memoire that will help ensure you don’t miss key gardening dates.

In it I cover not only those activities that are specific to gardening for wildlife but also other gardening jobs because, as we’ve seen, the two should be inseparable.

As activities go, gardening is forgiving enough to give you a little bit of flexibility so, if one season you’re a little late or early with a job, you can probably get away with it in most cases.

To start you off, below is a quick ready-reckoner of the most important and time-specific wildlife gardening jobs throughout the year.

In the table below, dark lilac shows the prime time to complete the activity, pale lilac is not as ideal but I reckon you’ll get away with it!

If it wasn’t for the feverish to-ing and fro-ing of birds at your feeders and bird tables (and hopefully also at some of the seedheads you’ve left standing), winter gardens might look very lifeless indeed. It’s a miracle that insect-eating birds, such as Goldcrests and Long-tailed Tits, survive at all and, for them, every waking moment is spent seeking sustenance.

Periods of snow and ice are especially difficult for garden birds. The shelter that evergreens such as Ivy and Holly now offer is a lifesaver over the long winter nights, while Blue and Great Tits will have laid claim to nest boxes for roosting. Given the short, cold days, you’d think that there wasn’t much to do for your garden. Oh, you’d be so wrong!

•Planning is priceless: make a sowing plan for the year ahead and design new features, then order seeds, seed potatoes and onion sets.

•Take part in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch on the last weekend in January and help the RSPB measure how garden birds are faring.

•Get creative: January is a great month to beaver away indoors making nest boxes for birds, bats and bees...

•Finish digging beds and borders – improves drainage and opens up the soil so your plants can send down their roots, while exposing seeds and minibeasts for the birds.

•Take particular care not to disturb Hedgehogs that could be hibernating in log piles and compost heaps.

•Keep birdbaths ice-free during freezing weather, but use warm water, never salt or de-icer.

•Continue to plant bare-rooted trees, shrubs, fruit trees and bushes during frost-free periods, and transplant shrubs or saplings (from now until mid March).

•Prune established apple and pear trees (until the end of February), removing dead, diseased and damaged wood, and opening up the centre of the tree.

•Prune shrub roses (from now until April), taking stems back by half and getting rid of dead and crossing stems.

•Prune Gooseberry and currants bushes (now and into February), opening up the middle of the bush.

•Sow in warmth, such as in a heated greenhouse or propagator: French beans, leeks, lettuce, mustard, onions, radishes, tomatoes.

•Check stored dahlia tubers – feel for any soft parts, which indicate rot and will need cutting out.

•Keep bird feeders topped up at all times and, as importantly, keep them clean. Clear up spilled seed from the ground beneath feeders if it’s causing a problem, but don’t put it on compost heaps.

Although this is often the coldest month in the UK, bulbs are already beginning to poke through the soil, signalling welcome changes afoot. On warm days later in the month, Frogs can start to become active in ponds, even laying the first spawn, and a Brimstone butterfly or queen bumblebee might be lured out of hibernation. There aren’t many native flowers that bloom in February, so the bees may turn to winter heathers, Winter Honeysuckle, daphnes and Viburnum x bodnantense.

February can be a lean time for birds, especially during snow, and those bird feeders become essential to help see them through cold days and long, even colder nights.

•Ensure you’ve put up any new bird boxes – prospective owners will be checking them out soon.

•This is the best month to prune wildlife hedges, if all the berries have been taken. Cut hedges over a 2-year cycle, alternate sides each year.

•Get ready for sowing – check you have a good supply of clean pots and plenty of peat-free potting compost because sowing season is about to kick off.

•Plant willow whips (now and into March), to create imaginative dens and screens.

•Clean water butts of leaves and debris, which will otherwise will rot and pong!

•Lift, divide and replant snowdrops ‘in the green’ (i.e. with leaves on) – they will spread more quickly that way.

•Prune winter-flowering shrubs, such as Winter Jasmine and Viburnum x bodnantense, once the blossom is over (now until April), taking out old stems and thinning new growth.

•Hard prune climbers like wisteria and late-flowering clematis and also overgrown honeysuckles.

•Have you got all the compost bins you need? Slatted ones are better for wildlife.

•Do a final preparation of vegetable beds, lightly forking them over and raking.

•Late in the month, start to sow broad beans, carrots, lettuces, onions, parsley, parsnips, early peas, spring cabbage and turnips in sheltered places or under cloches.

•Start to sow seeds of flowers like dahlias, snapdragons, sweet peas, Tobacco Plant and verbenas in heated propagators.

•Sow broad beans, cauliflowers, French beans, leeks, early lettuces, onions, radishes, sprouts and tomatoes.

This month can start so cold, yet can soon seem full of hope: there’s an undeniable sense that nature is stirring all around. On a still, sunny day, hibernating butterflies start to emerge and, by month’s end, the first Chiffchaffs have returned and are singing. Blackbirds and Robins crack straight on with their first brood.

Daffodils and primroses begin to brighten up the place, but of greater value to wildlife is the sallow blossom and the first lungworts, both magnets for early bees. But don’t be lulled into thinking that birds must now be having it easier – this is still a difficult time for them as all the natural winter supplies become exhausted.

•Try to complete all hedge pruning early in the month ahead of the bird breeding season – that will be it then, until September.

•Prepare the ground and sow your area of cornfield annuals (now until early May).

•Sow herbaceous perennials indoors in clean compost, watering with tap water to avoid diseases.

•Sow hardy annuals in pots indoors, and prepare flowerbeds ready for sowing them outside.

•Cut back the dead seedheads of last year’s herbaceous perennials. If you think they may still be harbouring seeds or insects, just leave them in tidy piles in the garden rather than putting them straight to compost.

•Prune elders, lavateras, caryopteris and Buddleia x weyeriana back to 30–60cm stems.

•Check that saplings haven’t been root-rocked by the winter storms; tie them back to their stake if necessary.

•Plant out perennials (now into May) such as scabiouses, sweet peas and wallflowers.

•Lift and divide herbaceous perennials (between now and April), including herbs and ‘sensitive’ ones, such as asters, catmints, delphiniums, red-hot pokers, scabiouses and sneezeweeds.

•This is the main month for sowing vegetables and their companion plants. Almost all of them can be started off this month.

•You can sow a green manure crop, such as Field Lupins or Crimson Clover, for a few weeks to carpet bare ground.

•Do an early cut or two of your lawns if you are going to manage them as a summer meadow.

•Sow cucumbers, French and runner beans, sweetcorn and tomatoes (now and into April).

April is so exciting; prepare to be busy. There can be real warmth from the sun on some days, even while there is still frost on some nights. Plants put on a growth spurt with many more coming into flower. There’s a blanket of Blackthorn blossom in the hedgerows, Marsh Marigolds illuminate ponds, spring meadows come into their own, and it’s all go on the woodland garden floor.

You know spring is officially here when the first Swallow passes over and when the weeds start to germinate! The latter is your cue to sow seeds directly into the soil. But this can often be a hard time for seed-eating birds, just at the point when male birds need to defend a territory and females need to lay eggs, so keep up the supplementary feeding.

•You should be kept very busy sowing vegetables, potting on seedlings, and transplanting and nurturing young plants. When watering seeds in pots and trays, use tap water to reduce the risk of the dreaded ‘damping off’ fungal disease.

•Get on top of weeds. Dig out perennial weeds carefully (and compost them separately) and hoe annual ones.

•Sow annuals outside into prepared ground, such as Pot Marigold, Candytuft, Cornflower, California Poppy, Annual Lupin, Poached-egg Plant, Larkspur, scorpion weeds and Annual Sunflower.

•Divide herbaceous perennials as they start to show signs of life, especially those that will flower in late summer. Replant the divisions separately, well spaced, to create drifts of colour and insect food later in the year.

•This is the best time to plant or transplant evergreen shrubs (now until May), just as they come into full active growth.

•Prune Flowering Currant and other early flowering shrubs (usually to within three buds of old wood) as soon as the blossom is over.

•Take tip cuttings of Hop, inserting into free-draining compost but watering often.

•Start sowing broccoli and maincrop peas, and continue sowing other vegetables: little and often will give you a succession of crops.

•Divide aquatic plants, replanting in baskets using peat-free, low-nutrient compost.

•Be patient if there is a flush of algae – if you have followed the rules it should soon clear.

•Switch from dried to live or soaked mealworms, make sure peanuts can’t be taken whole by birds and cut out homemade fat foods, which tend to go off quickly as temperatures rise.

What a glorious month this is! Nature has moved to full throttle, temperatures are rising (although late frosts are possible), and there’s a buzz of insects in the air. With everything so fresh and vibrant, it makes you want to get out there. The breeding season for birds is in full swing and latecomers, such as Swifts and Spotted Flycatchers, return. Many garden residents are already introducing their first brood of youngsters to the delights of your garden.

In the pond, tadpoles and ‘toadpoles’ are growing fast and the first damselflies are on the wing, while in the woodland garden Bluebells grab their moment before the canopy closes over.

•Continue to prune flowering shrubs as they go over, taking out a few old stems to encourage new growth ready for next year – they will flower on this summer’s growth.

•Be a Miss Marple with your breeding birds and work out where they are nesting – then give them a wide berth.

•‘Chelsea chop’ perennials that flower in later summer, removing the top third of growth, to keep them shorter and bushier.

•If you sowed a meadow the previous autumn, mow it now to 5cm and remove the clippings.

•Take heel cuttings from lavender, pulling a side shoot down off the main stem and potting in sandy compost.

•Plant out hardy annuals that you raised in trays in March, and thin those sown directly into the soil to 10–15cm apart.

•Put up wigwams and supports and train sweet peas; take softwood cuttings of fuchsias and verbenas, and sideshoot cuttings from Wallflower ‘Bowles’ Mauve’.

•Sow outside: beans (broad and runner), beetroot, cabbage, cauliflower, Chives, lettuces, onion sets, parsley, peas, sweetcorn; and plant out early sown brassicas and leeks.

•Pinch out the tips of broad beans as soon as the lowest pods begin to set, to help curb blackfly, and nip out strawberry runners.

After the frenetic spring, there is more of a feeling of calm as you wander around your garden attending to rather more routine jobs, such as hoicking out the stubbornly shooting weeds or starting to deadhead flowering plants.

Things can seem much quieter on the bird front, but they’re unobtrusively getting on with raising their young and, for many, starting the next brood. It’s a genuine lull for adult butterflies before late summer’s rush of species, but bumblebee colonies are beginning to build up in strength, and there should be many solitary bees on the wing, taking advantage of all the flowers including your cornfield patch at its colourful peak.

•Stake top-heavy perennials with hazel and willow twigs saved over the winter.

•Deadhead flowers as they go over to prolong the flowering season until you are ready to let them go to seed.

•Prune spring-flowering Broom, taking out three-quarters of the length of flowering stems.

•Lift out spring bedding plants, such as wallflowers and forget-me-nots, and sow next year’s in seed drills in the vegetable patch, plus foxgloves and Honesty.

•Harden off bedding plants by putting them outside by day in a sheltered, sunny position and bringing them in at night. After a couple of weeks, they’re ready to plant outside.

•Sow beetroot, carrots, cauliflowers, courgettes, cucumbers, French beans, lettuces, marrows, peas, runner beans, spinach and sweetcorn.

•Put straw around strawberries to stop soil splashing onto the fruit and spoiling them.

•Remove excess weed, a small amount at a time leaving it for a day on the pond edge for creatures to crawl back. Once it has begun to dry out, simply compost it.

•Reduce the amount of seed you put out, never letting food lie uneaten for days at a time.

The heat of summer brings a bustle of butterflies and bees, moth traps reveal that the night-time garden is even busier, and dazzling dragonflies patrol the airways over ponds. There can be apparent calm on the bird front, but they are soldiering on with second and third broods under the cover of summer’s dense vegetation.

Flower borders are now riotous, thick with brilliant reds and oranges that match the fieriness of the season. The woodland garden is refreshing in its deep shade, and the summer meadow is rising to a flowering peak. Pots and hanging baskets are at their best, and there are delicious scents of Summer Jasmine, honeysuckles and stocks on the light breeze.

•There’ll be plants demanding water daily, but butts are likely to be running low, so conserve limited supplies by watering in the cool of evening or early morning, and water right to the roots of those that need it most such as pots and hanging baskets, cucumbers, potatoes, beans and tomatoes.

•Keep birdbaths topped up – this is the time when birds need it the most. Take the opportunity to give the bowls a good scrub to keep them hygienic.

•Take semi-ripe cuttings of almost any shrubs and climbers, from dogwoods to honeysuckles, Rosemary to roses: cut a non-flowering shoot just below a leaf node, remove the lower leaves and plant in gritty, free-draining compost; water with tap water, cover with a clean, clear plastic bag and place in a shady warm position. In a couple of weeks, rooting should have started and you can remove the bag and allow the new plants to grow on.

•Remove suckers around trees and shrubs, such as cherries and plums, from now through to autumn.

•Arrange the pot garden, bringing those at their best to the fore for their star turn.

•Mow the spring meadow for the first time, keeping the blades quite high to start with, and then every few weeks thereafter.

•Late in the month, give the annual prune to trained fruit, such as espaliers and cordons of apples, redcurrants and Gooseberries, reducing sideshoots to three leaves.

Hot days can still be upon us, formal lawns can look rather exhausted, and your summer meadow is turning to yellowing hay, but flower borders continue to pack a punch. Butterflies such as Peacocks, Painted Ladies, Red Admirals and Brimstones are in evidence, and the heathland garden is a purple haze.

Pond levels can drop dramatically, but bear with it – summer storms should bring levels back up quickly. It’s a good month to see plenty of dragonflies and bats, and Hedgehogs may bring youngsters to snuffle around flower borders and meadows. Watch, too, for the synchronised emergence of flying ants from under paving.

•Keep deadheading, but remember to leave some flowers to go to seed and roses to turn into hips.

•Keep watering those plants that need it, using ‘grey water’ from washing the veggies or even from your bath. Continue to keep birdbaths topped up with clean water.

•Keep feeding pot plants and hanging baskets little and often – they soon exhaust their natural supplies.

•If, and only if, you are absolutely sure there are no late bird broods, from late in the month prune evergreen shrubs and privet, Beech, Hornbeam and cypress hedges.

•Summer prune wisterias, taking off long shoots to encourage more flowers next year.

•Dry weather can cause mildew – cut afflicted plants back to the base and water well.

•Harvest beans regularly to keep the crop coming; harvest onions once the tops have died down; harvest blackcurrants, cherries and plums, leaving a few for the wildlife!

•Sow late beetroot, lettuces, French and runner beans, plus winter and spring cabbages.

•When they have finished fruiting, cut summer raspberry canes back to the ground, and thin new growth to 10cm apart, tying in to supports.

•Cut off all strawberry leaves and runners to force the plants’ energy into next year’s flowers.

•Apart from squabbling House Sparrow families or Starlings, feeders can often be eerily quiet now. Don’t worry – there is plenty of natural food for the birds at the moment. Only put as much food out as is getting eaten.

Warm September sunshine may lull you into thinking that summer will never loosen its grip, but nature knows better. It senses that nights are eating rapidly into day length, and for much wildlife it is time to start shutting up shop, with summer migrants heading south in droves.

Enjoy the butterflies and bees that cling on in numbers, relishing the fading glory of the herbaceous border that still shows off with beauties such as Coneflower, achilleas and Verbena bonariensis. Some butterflies also turn to windfall fruit, as do drunken and slightly touchy wasps.

•While the soil is warm, divide and replant perennials that have finished flowering, avoiding sensitive souls such as scabiouses, asters, delphiniums and red-hot pokers.

•Plant out evergreen shrubs and relocate established ones if you need to (now until November).

•Lightly cultivate the cornfield garden mid month to prompt germination of what will be next year’s display; ideally, remove weeds and replenish those areas with fresh cornfield annual flower seeds.

•Your compost bins are probably filling – shred or use a lawnmower to break up material and get the decomposition really motoring.

•Prune rambler and climbing roses now through to November, once flowering is over, by taking back sideshoots on climbers and taking out a third of old stems to ground level on ramblers. Take rose cuttings.

•Trim lavenders after flowering, either with secateurs or shears, never going into old wood.

•Harvest beetroot, carrots, marrows, onions, potatoes, sweetcorn and tomatoes.

•Prune fruiting canes of blackberries and summer raspberries down to ground level, and tie in new growth to wire supports.

•Mow (or scythe!) summer meadows for the first time, leaving the hay lying a while to drop seed before removing.

Every month in the garden is special in its own way, but this one just pips it for me. You’ve got berry-laden bushes, dew on the spiders’ webs, Red Admirals clustering around Ivy flowers, an explosion of fungi, and the last fling for the herbaceous borders with Michaelmas daisies putting on a defiant show. Blackbirds clamour over the windfalls, Robins sing their melancholy autumn song, and Redwings and Fieldfares begin to pass overhead.

And I haven’t even mentioned the stunning backdrop as the autumn leaves flush with fire and then fall. If there was a bit more of a poet in me, I’m sure I could make something of all the mists, mellowness and fruit out there.

•Net ponds to prevent leaves from falling in, and collect them from here and from flowerbeds and lawns. Give them a quick run-over with the mower to speed up decomposition and then put them in a wire cage to create leaf mould.

•On the other hand, see if you can leave leaves (so to speak) lying naturally in woodland gardens for beetles and autumn caterpillars to hide among and for the Blackbirds to turn over.

•Don’t tidy up herbaceous borders more than you need to – leave those seedheads in place.

•When the first frosts turn dahlia leaves brown, lift them, hang upside down for a few days under cover, and bung them in a box of sand in a dry, cool place for the winter.

•Plant spring-bedding wallflowers and forget-me-nots (now until December) into their flowering position for next spring.

•Pot up perennials such as fuchsias and herbs, and bring them and tender pot plants into the greenhouse or conservatory.

•Harvest beetroot, carrots, potatoes, swedes and turnips; gather and store apples and pears.

•Sow broad beans and peas for standing overwinter. Plant autumn onion sets, and sow late lettuces and spring cabbages.

•On vacant patches, sow green manures, such as Phacelia, winter tares and ryegrasses. In the spring it can be dug in to add nutrients straight back into the soil.

•If you have a formal lawn rake out any moss, scarify (using a machine that cuts deep slits into it) to get into the thatch and give the turf air, and then top dress with a loam-based compost and grit. Sow seed onto bare areas. This is also the last chance to create new lawns from seed or turf.

There’s no holding out any more – winter is on its way. The Ivy gives a brave last stand offering nectar for late insects, but the trees are now losing their last leaves and herbaceous plants are dying back.

It’s a month when the temptation to tidy is often strong, like clearing the table of the crumbs after a hearty meal. You don’t need to deny the urge completely – just tidy creatively, enjoying the effect of dead stems and seedheads and a kickable carpet of leaves wherever you can.

•Take extra care on 5th November that no Hedgehogs have clambered into the bonfire you’ve just built.

•Time to start digging! On an established plot, dig in manure as you go or cover the surface with a thick layer of compost mulch and let the worms continue the job.

•Begin planting deciduous trees and shrubs including fruit trees, roses, soft fruit and hedges,

•Take hardwood cuttings (now until January) of roses and many deciduous shrubs and climbers such as brooms, elders, Flowering Currant, honeysuckles and willows. Cut a 30cm stem with a bud top and bottom, and insert 15cm into a slit in the ground, adding a little sand to the slit if your soil is heavy. Give the plants a year to get going before you transplant them.

•Chop back the long stems of honeysuckles (now until February) to as little as 30cm if necessary, though it’s really just to keep them under control.

•Collect tree seeds, extracting them from berries if necessary; sow them in pots and stand outside over the winter.

•As annuals die in the border, remove and compost them once they have shed seed.

•Mulch herbaceous borders around the dead stems of the perennials, preferably with leaf mould.

•Take root cuttings of herbaceous perennials with fleshy roots such as Coneflower, mulleins, phlox and hardy geraniums (now through to March).

•Even when we feel the cold, there are still lots of insects, seeds and berries in the countryside so don’t panic if there aren’t many birds in your garden. By late November, as the birds return, put out more supplementary food.

There’s barely anything left in flower in the garden now, and any bee or butterfly abroad is brave or foolish. Winter Jasmine and Oregon-grapes are two of the few shrubs that offer welcome nectar, although there is little around to take advantage of it.

Evergreen shrubs really come into their own to hold your garden design together against the bare background of the borders, but wild animals are more interested in whether they’ve got any berries on them.

It’s down to the birds to keep us entertained, hopefully gorging on food that you and your garden produced as well as what’s in your feeders.

•It’s the start of the main pruning season, keeping fruit trees open and airy, renovating old and tired shrubs, and sometimes even removing trees if the garden is becoming too overgrown. And that means it’s the season for creating log and stick piles, as artistically as you like.

•Dig some more of the vegetable and annual-flower borders when the soil isn’t too wet, with your friendly neighbourhood Robin by your side grabbing grubs from the turned soil.

•Coppice willows and Hazel between now and February, saving the stems for some home weaving, pea-sticks or herbaceous-perennial supports.

•Fit water butts to catch rain from the gutters of your house, shed, conservatory and garage.

•Winter prune wisterias (from now until February), cutting again those whippy shoots that you dealt with in summer, taking them back to only about 3cm now to encourage flowering next year.

•Plant bare-rooted trees, shrubs, roses and hedging whips (from now until early March), rehydrating their roots in a bucket of water before planting and getting them into the ground as soon as possible.

•Prune back trees and shrubs if they are in the way of paths or views, adding the branches to log piles.

•Winter prune apple and pear trees (now into January) if they are heading skywards.

•Sharpen tools, wash pots, clean canes and tidy up after all the months of frenzy and distraction.

Trail cams are a great way of revealing what is using your garden under cover of darkness.