Why Your Garden Matters More Than Ever

Hedgehogs are among the most beloved visitors to a British garden, yet their numbers have fallen dramatically over the past few decades. The reasons are many — loss of hedgerows, busier roads, fewer insects — but there is one piece of good news that should cheer every gardener: our gardens, taken together, cover a larger area than all our national nature reserves combined. What we do in them genuinely matters.

Hedgehogs do not ask for much. They need shelter to nest and hibernate, safe routes to travel, a reliable supply of insects, and somewhere to drink. Most of that can be provided by a few small changes, and many of them take nothing more than an afternoon and a little restraint with the lawnmower.

Leave a Wild Corner

The single most valuable thing you can do for hedgehogs is to let one corner of the garden go a bit ragged. A pile of logs, a heap of autumn leaves, a patch of longer grass behind the shed — these untidy places are exactly where hedgehogs nest, hibernate and raise their young.

• Build a log pile in a quiet corner, stacking the logs loosely so there are gaps and hollows inside. Add a few handfuls of dry leaves on top.
• Rake leaves into a heap rather than bagging them. Leave it undisturbed from late October to March, when a hedgehog may be hibernating deep inside.
• Let a metre-wide strip of grass grow long through the summer. It will attract beetles and caterpillars, which are the mainstay of a hedgehog's diet.
• Leave a small patch of bare earth or short grass for foraging, and avoid covering every inch with gravel or decking.

If you have room, a purpose-built hedgehog house tucked into a sheltered corner is a lovely addition — but a simple pile of logs and leaves does the job just as well at no cost at all.

Open Up Your Boundaries

A hedgehog can travel a mile or more in a single night, and it needs that range to find enough food. A solid fence or wall stops it in its tracks and can trap it in a garden with too little to offer.

The fix is delightfully simple. Cut a 13cm (about 5 inches) square gap at the bottom of a fence panel, or lift a couple of gravel boards slightly. A gap the size of a CD case is all a hedgehog needs, and it will not let cats or foxes through any more than they already manage.

Talk to your neighbours and line the gaps up, so that several gardens join into a single corridor. A whole street working together creates a genuine hedgehog highway, and the difference to local survival rates is remarkable.

Cover Drains, Ponds and Other Hidden Dangers

Hedgehogs are curious and poor climbers, and they cannot scramble out of steep-sided holes. A quick walk around the garden will usually reveal a few hazards worth sorting.

• Cover drains, gullies and light wells with a close-fitting mesh or grille, weighted down so it cannot be pushed aside.
• Give a pond an escape route. A wooden ramp, a gently sloping stone bank or a few stacked stones lets a hedgehog climb out if it falls in.
• Keep garden netting at least 30cm above the ground, or peg it up during the day. Hedgehogs become badly tangled in loose netting.
• Before lighting a bonfire, move the whole pile to a new spot on the day. A dry heap of wood is a tempting place to sleep.
• Cut the plastic rings from multi-pack cans and squash tin cans flat before they go in the bin.

These are small jobs, but each one removes a genuine risk. A hedgehog that survives a night in your garden may well return for years.

Look Before You Cut

Strimmers and mowers cause a shockingly large number of hedgehog injuries each year. The injuries are almost always avoidable, because a hedgehog's instinct when threatened is to curl up and stay still rather than run.

• Walk the long grass first, and part it with a stick or a gloved hand before you start.
• Cut from the middle of a patch outwards, so anything hiding inside has a clear escape route.
• Check the compost heap carefully before pushing a fork in, especially in winter.
• Remember the seasons: hoglets are often born between May and September, and hibernation runs from roughly November to March.

If you find a hedgehog out in daylight, or one that looks unsteady, it usually needs help rather than a meal. Place it in a high-sided box with a towel and seek advice from a local wildlife rescue the same day.

Food, Water and a Few Kind Habits

Supplementary feeding can be a lifeline, particularly in hot, dry summers when natural prey is scarce. Offer meat-based cat or dog food, or proper hedgehog biscuits, in a shallow dish under a weighted cover so cats cannot pinch it.

A shallow dish of fresh water, refreshed daily, is one of the simplest gifts you can give. Avoid bread and milk, which causes serious digestive trouble, and go easy on mealworms — a few as a treat are fine, but large quantities can lead to calcium deficiency and brittle bones.

Above all, avoid slug pellets entirely. Hedgehogs eat slugs, and a hedgehog that eats a poisoned slug is poisoned too. Encouraging beetles, caterpillars and worms with a bit of long grass and leaf litter is far kinder and every bit as effective.

None of these changes will make your garden look neglected. Done thoughtfully, they simply make it a little wilder, a little richer, and far more likely to reward you with a snuffling visitor at dusk.