For those of you who might have followed my blogs and social media – or have had a garden designed by me - it will come as no surprise that I am an avid supporter of wildlife in gardens. What may not be as apparent though, is how keenly I follow those principles in my own garden, and what an utter delight it has been to see that garden develop from a featureless new build lawn, into an absolute haven for wildlife over the 11 years I’ve lived here.
In this blog, I’m focussing on one particularly joyous aspect of this journey which has happened recently - read on to find out what that is!
I deliberately designed this garden to be friendly to wildlife. I put up nestboxes (used in the first year), a batbox (never used), placed little woodpiles in quiet corners to gently rot down; grew pollinating-supportive plants, and let the corners go a bit wild. I cultivated (yes, cultivated!) a stand of nettles between my greenhouse and the neighbour’s garage as a nursery for beneficial insects including ladybirds and butterflies. I dug a pond and was quickly rewarded with frogspawn, toadspawn, and newts. I cut a hole in the gate between my veg patch and the main garden to make a little internal hedgehog highway, and made holes in the garden fence at a couple of different points. The point of all of this was to create a habitat that would be inviting and capable of supporting a wide variety of wildlife.
In 2020 my husband and I were beyond excited to find a hedgehog in the garden, discovered by our dogs (but never harmed – they are very gentle). We saw the hedgehog a few more times, and decided to put a wildlife camera in the garden to capture its movements. It visited a few times a week, but then disappeared. We waited and wondered, worried that it had met an untimely death.
Imagine our surprise when a little later, we saw not one but two hedgehogs on the camera! What we initially thought was territorial competition turned out to be ‘courting’ and we excitedly watched the camera for signs of babies. It was not to be – this was 2022 and the second, much larger hedgehog disappeared. Over the next few years, ‘our’ hedgehog became a regular visitor to the garden, and we speculated where he was living. The hedgehog house I put in a quiet corner has never been used, and hedgehogs do range widely, so it remains a mystery. We were visited by a badger once, and we thought perhaps the presence of this notorious hedgehog predator had put the spiky fellow off.
Fast forward to this year – we got a second camera, and moved it around the garden a few times. The camera doesn’t bother any of the wildlife in the garden at all – we have foxes, mice and the occasional rat.
I was watching the hedgehog one evening in late October, then spotted another one! There were two hedgehogs in the garden. I quickly realised that these hogs were actually much smaller – they were babies, or ‘hoglets!’ Sightings became more frequent, and then we had confirmation that they were babies once we saw the mother with one of the hoglets – she was much larger.
Immediately we were worried that this late litter would not grow big enough to survive the winter – hedgehog babies need to reach a certain weight to make it through hibernation. So we made a decision – rather than relying on the garden to provide enough food, we would give them a fighting chance by feeding the babies. I bought some good quality hedgehog food, moistened it with a little water (as per the instructions) and put it down where we knew they’d find it.
The next morning we eagerly checked the cameras – and were rewarded with the sight of both hoglets together stuffing their little faces! Some experimentation established the right amount of food so that it would all get eaten, but not left for the fox (who visits much later in the night).
From the activity we observed, it was clear that the hoglets were staying within the garden, and it seems likely that they are living underneath an upturned wheelbarrow beside the compost heap. This is at one end of the greenhouse, under a sheltering stand of nettles, so as it turns out, a perfect hidden yet accessible setup for them.
We still hadn’t seen all three together, and it was hard to judge how much growth the hoglets had managed. However, last night, this wish was granted – the camera captured all three together at the food bowl, very politely eating a family meal. We were astounded by the evidence of growth in the hoglets, when re-measured against mum – they are now nearly the same size.
We will continue feeding this little family until they go into hibernation. With the temperatures dropping overnight to single figures, this won’t be very long, and we hope we’ve done enough to help the hoglets put on weight. We are praying that they choose our garden to hibernate in, and look forward to welcoming them back in the spring!
I’ll make sure to update you when they go into hibernation, and when they emerge – I hope you’re as excited about seeing them again as I am.