By using some or all of these ideas in your garden, you can attract wildlife and thereby contribute to help protect biodiversity in Conwy
- Create a space for compost. Provide plants, old soil, cardboard, paper towels, kitchen waste, and newspapers without gloss on paper. That will create an excellent place for amphibians and reptiles, which helps to keep natural control on insects and animals that can be garden pests.
- Plant some types of native planting trees and shrubs, as these will attract large numbers of insects, which in turn provide food for birds and mammals. Or choose varieties that are unfamiliar with berries or seeds that birds and mammals eat.
- Get plenty of places for creatures to live, such as stones, piles of wood and dense bushes, so that the creatures that are natural pest controls have a place to hide.
- Buy bushes such as climbing clematis, jasmine and Parthenocissus ("red climber"). Species like Ivy, Pyracantha berries and honeysuckle which produce fruit are even better.
- Plant native species in your hedges, some as hawthorn, hazel, maple or viburnum opulus - as before, those producing fruit are the best!
- Plant wildflowers in a dry stone wall - a walls like these will be an extremely good habitat because they are dry in the rain and warm in the sun, therefore good for insects like butterflies as well as lizards.
- Change ap art of your lawn to be a meadow of flowers. Let your lawn grow in the spring/ summer? You may be surprised by what flowers flourish. You can get more flowers by sowing wildflower seed mix. That will create food and safe places for insects, mammals and amphibians.
- Make a bird feeder, bird bath or a box where they nest. Use different types of bird food to attract different types of them. Birds such as the Blue Tit will feed from wire boxes, while the Robin, Blackbird and song Thrush likes to feed off the boards or off the ground.
- Plant a tree will be a platform for birds to sing, out of reach of cats.
- You can create a pool, even if you only have space for a small one. Make sure that there is a gradual slope on one side, so that mammals, birds and insects can drink and wash safely. Grow water plants in the pond water and wet ground on one edge, so that the animals have somewhere to hide.
Avoid using pesticides to eliminate pests such as slugs. Use other methods such as old plastic bottles over young plants; coarse matting, bran (bran) or seaweed around small plants, or set beer traps to catch the slugs.