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Garden wildlife jobs for July

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Wildlife gardening jobs for July

Garden wildlife jobs for July

BBC Gardeners' World Magazine

Published: Wednesday, 27 March 2019 at 8:10 am

Find out how you can give the wildlife in your garden a helping hand in July.

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In July, our lawns are teeming with baby animals. Frogs, toads and newts are still leaving ponds in search of cool, damp shelter. Fledgling blackbirds are demanding worms and other food from their harassed parents, and hedgehogs are leaving their nests for the first time, learning how to forage on their own.

Now's the perfect time to leave out additional food for a variety of species.

What to plant in July

Help baby frogs

Grow pond side plants for frogs

Wildlife gardening - grow low-growing plants to protect frogs

Grow low-growing plants at the edges of your pond so that baby frogs have safe hiding places to shelter in. Areas of long grass will also work. Take care when mowing to avoid harming any amphibians sheltering here – you may need to avoid mowing for a couple of weeks, to enable them to disperse safely.

Avoid trimming hedges

Bird nest in a hedge

Checking that a birds' nest in a hedge is empty

Blackbirds and thrushes, along with house sparrows, greenfinches and goldfinches, often nest as late as August, so avoiding trimming hedges until the last of this season's birds have left their nests. Always check hedges thoroughly before trimming.

Sow biennials for pollinators

Wildlife gardening - sow biennials for pollinators

Sow wildlife-friendly biennial plants, such as honesty, teasels (pictured) and foxgloves, that will flower next year. Choose from a variety of wildfower seeds from Thompson & Morgan.

Feed hedgehogs

A hedgehog eating out of a bowl on a lawn

Leave out water and meat-based dog or cat food (ideally chicken flavour) for hedgehogs. Babies should be emerging any day now and this extra food will help them fatten up before going into hibernation in late autumn. If you're concerned about cats or foxes eating the food instead, make a hedgehog feeding station to enable hedgehogs to feed safely. Why not go the whole hog and install a hedgehog home? We've picked some heavenly homes in our buyers guide.

Cut down perennial meadows

Wildlife gardening jobs for July

Cutting down a perennial meadow with a strimmer

Check areas of long grass carefully, for hedgehogs and other creatures that may be hidden there. Use a strimmer to cut down perennial meadows. It's best to cut in stages – cut half now and then the other half in a month's time. Leave seedheads where they fall for a few days to let the seeds scatter into the soil, then gather up the clippings for compost. Then mow the meadow with a lawnmower to make it short and even. Remove all the mowings to avoid enriching the soil - most wildflowers grow best in low-nutrient conditions.

Read our review of Sthil's cordless power system, which includes a grass strimmer and was awarded a Best Buy, and is available to buy on Amazon.

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