Let your garden go wild 

If you’re able to leave all, or at least some, of your garden wild this winter, you’ll be providing vital warmth and habitats for invertebrates. More insects means there is more food for ground feeding birds like robins, blackbirds and song thrushes.  

Avoid trimming winter seedheads if you can. These skeletal forms are shadows of their previous floral selves and are great sources of food – the stems even form an overwintering spot for bugs. Sunflowers are loved by house sparrows and bluetits, and angelica holds its structure and is loved by ladybirds in particular. Other recommendations are teasel, poppies, phlomis and echinacea.  

If you do want to trim your garden, leave the clippings at or near ground level. This will also protect new shoots from frosts.  

Plant for winter 

As we’ve mentioned, there are certain species that transform into useful winter seedheads. You could also use planting pots and containers with hardy flowers that offer a generous supply of nectar, such as crocus, hellebores and snowdrops, which are great for late pollinators. Plant pots are also used by slugs and spiders to insulate them from the frosty weather. Just make sure you use peat-free compost! 

If you have a bigger garden, consider whether you could plant trees or hedge plants – winter is the perfect time to do this. Hawthorn, rowan and holly provide berries for birds in winter. Our winter migrant, the redwing, is a huge fan of hawthorn berries – you’ll often see them hopping along the bare branches devouring as many as they can. 

Ivy is also incredibly important for wildlife as it doubles up as an excellent shelter and food source for insects and birds. Read more about winter gardening for wildlife.  

Start a compost heap with your plant cuttings  

If you are giving the garden a tidy, why not start a compost heap with your plant cuttings? This is great for the environment – you’re reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill and creating a great environment for bugs, which live within the compost and help the decaying process. These insects are also a great food source for hedgehogs and birds, so it’s a winner all round! 

All you need is waste, air and water. If you would like a simple open heap, you can cover it with cardboard or tarpaulin to stop it getting wet during the harsh winter months. Alternatively, you can use a ‘bin’ if you want something that looks a little tidier and is a bit easier to manage. You can read The Wildlife Trust’s full guide to composting your waste here. 

Create a home for minibeasts 

As well as leaf piles and compost heaps, there are a few other ways that you can support insects this season. Piles of logs create great habitats, so can a pile of rocks or stones. You could also dig shallow holes (about 10cm) and almost completely cover them with paving slabs, which frogs and toads will love. They can’t stay out in the open, so they need good places to hide from predators. 

You may want to consider creating your own bug hotel featuring bricks, log piles and stones, which solitary bees and other insects can use to hibernate in, or you could put up a ‘bee hotel’ – just make sure it’s in a cool, dry and stable winter location away from rain and freezing temperatures, such as inside a shed. Rain can lead to damp and mould inside the box, which can kill any baby bees.  

Put up a nest/roost box  

Although we aren’t currently in breeding season, birds may use nest boxes as a cosy spot to spend the evening when it’s freezing, and it provides a good opportunity for them to check out future real estate for when spring rolls around. 

If you’d like to go the extra mile, you could provide a specially designed roost box. These are different from nest boxes in that they’re created to conserve heat, so they have fewer ventilation holes, and the entrance hole is near the bottom so that the rising warmth doesn’t escape. They may also feature perches.  

If you don’t want to buy a specially designed roost box, why not modify an existing nesting box? You could turn the front panel around so that the entrance hole is at the bottom and create your own perches with twigs from the garden. Make sure to cover some of the ventilation holes so that it’s warm and cosy. It’s also important to give it a good clean as previous occupants may have left parasites and harmful bacteria. 

Top up your bird feeders and bird bath 

Birds are small and have high metabolic rates, so they need to eat between 25-50% of their body weight every day. In winter, when foraging is restricted by the shorter day length, blue tits need to find food every 12-15 seconds, and this is especially difficult when food is scarce. 

Birds rely on many of us to provide enough food and water to keep them going. We recommend mixing foods with high fat content, such as fat balls or peanut cakes, with other food sources like nuts, grains and over-ripe fruits such as apples and raisins – this will vary their diet and help to keep them warm.  

Cleanliness is essential. Large numbers of birds sharing the same feeders means disease can spread rapidly, so be sure to clean beneath your feeders, sweep the bird table and disinfect all the feeders and water sources at least bi-weekly. If food remains uneaten or goes mouldy, throw it away.  

The same advice on cleanliness goes for bird baths and other sources of water. To ensure your water sources doesn’t freeze you could keep a tennis ball in them – the wind will move this around and prevent the water from completely freezing. Birds still need to bathe to keep their feathers in good condition and coated in natural oils, which helps keep them warm.  

Consider your pond 

If you have a pond and it is deeper than three feet, only the top layer should freeze. Fish will enter a state of ‘torpor’, which is like hibernation – hibernation is essentially a prolonged torpid state and is voluntary, whereas torpor isn’t. Fish will slow down their metabolism, breathing, reaction times and bodily functions. They naturally stay around the bottom of the pond during winter too, which prevents them from getting caught in the frost. 

In most instances, leaving your filter running (if you have a man-made pond) during winter will keep the water moving and will prevent it from freezing over.  

A word of caution: if your pond has been out over winter, is frozen over and fish are still in it, do not heat it up or try to melt the ice – this will shock and kill the fish as the sudden change in temperature is too much to cope with. They can only be brought out of their torpor state gradually, over the course of days or weeks. 

Heating a pond during winter is only useful for certain scenarios, such as just melting a little hole in the ice by holding a pan of hot water over it to allow oxygen to flow through, or to provide another source of drinking water for birds. 

Clearing any snow from the surface of a frozen pond can allow light to enter, meaning plants will increase their oxygen production. 

Most amphibians seek refuge on land during winter, so the piles of leaves and logs we mentioned earlier will make good spots for them.  

Help hibernating hedgehogs  

Our spiky friends will be snoozing the season away right now, but if you’re reading this on the approach to winter, now is a great time to buy or build a hedgehog house. Alternatively, you could go natural and use a log-pile, which serves as both a hibernation spot and hedgehog buffet as insects will likely also take refuge inside. This especially helpful during milder winters when hogs may wake up to find food.  

Leaves make great nesting material for hedgehogs, so as we’ve mentioned, let your garden go wild! Find out more ways to help hedgehogs here. 

Have you got a wildlife-friendly garden?  

Do you already carry out a lot of these suggestions throughout winter, or are planning on doing so? You may quality for one of our My Wild Garden awards!  Our award measures against four essential features to help us assess how welcoming to wildlife your garden is: food, shelter, water and connectivity.  

If you qualify, for a donation of £10 you’ll receive one of our naturally stamped wooden tree plaques to show your dedication to helping wildlife. Find out more about our My Wild Garden awards here.