6 Ways to Make a Metre Matter

One of the simplest and most effective ways to help our wildlife is to grow a pollinator-friendly border. As well as pollinating our crops, these insects (and their larvae) provide a vital source of food for birds, mammals and other animals. When we plant for pollinators, we tend to think of bees and butterflies, but it’s important to cater for as wide a range of pollinating insects as possible including hoverflies, wasps, flower beetles and moths.

Enjoy homegrown harvests

Growing your own can reduce your food miles and carbon footprint, while also supporting wildlife in your garden. The key to growing eco-friendly crops is to use resources such as water, sunlight and soil as effectively as possible, and to opt for natural, biodegradable or recycled products. If you grow different vegetables close together in a small space, the increased diversity helps deter troublesome insects and improves the health of the soil. And if you grow in a raised bed, you’ll benefit from some protection from floods and waterlogging, and warmer growing conditions in spring. So even in a small garden, if you choose space-saving veg, you can enjoy healthy homegrown veg throughout the summer and beyond.

Make a pond

You can’t do better than a wildlife pond if you want to create a fantastic habitat for nature in your garden. All life needs access to water and even a pond in a pot can attract amphibians, birds and invertebrates. Fill your pond with native aquatic plants to provide places for creatures to lay eggs, find shade and hide from predators. Once your local wildlife finds the water, you’ll be able to sit and watch natural wonders like dragonfly nymphs climbing up plant stems before emerging from their nymphal skins, frogs mating, dragonflies laying eggs and backswimmers paddling upside down beneath the surface of the water.

Save £££s on salads

Growing your own salad is an easy way to reduce your carbon footprint, with the added bonus that it can save you money on your weekly shop. Bagged salad leaves are a popular choice at the supermarket, but they often come with a high environmental price tag. You don’t even need a large garden to grow salad – a one-metre patch can produce an amazing array of tasty leaves year-round without the need for synthetic chemicals, peat or plastic packaging. And, if you start now, you can be harvesting your first fresh salad leaves in as little as four weeks.

Create a wildlife habitat haven

Across the UK, our gardens contain around 3 million ponds and 30 million trees, so they have enormous potential to provide homes and habitats for local wildlife. You don’t need a huge pond or mature trees to provide shelter, nest sites and places for wildlife to feed in your garden. Even the smallest plot can provide a series of micro-habitats. What’s more, if we work together with others in our local area, we can create networks of wildlife-friendly gardens that work like community nature reserves. You can do your bit to support beneficial creatures by using a metre of space for a dead wood habitat, stumpery, hoverfly lagoon or a hibernaculum for frogs.

Get composting

Boost your soil health and provide a habitat for wildlife by making your own garden compost. It’s easy to do and all you need for a thriving compost heap is a square metre of space. You can buy a compost bin or make your own. Composting cuts down on the carbon cost of transporting waste and avoids the need to transport and buy peat-based growing media, collected at the expense of vital carbon-storing habitats. Garden compost also makes a great mulch for beds and borders, which improves the health of your plants, conserves water and provides habitats for wildlife.