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March is a difficult month for wildlife. Temperatures can still fall well below freezing at night, so invertebrates (earthworms, beetles and caterpillars) may still be taking shelter. This gives the birds little to eat as they have now gone through all but the last of the berries, which means they can go hungry at this time of year.
Frogs start to breed in March, laying clumps of jelly-like spawn at the edge of a pond. A few weeks after Frogs start to lay spawn the toads join in. Toads prefer larger ponds to frogs, and will often return to ancestral pond sites. They lay ribbons of spawn around the stems of submerged plants such as marsh marigold. This is a great time to shine a light into your pond at night to see male newts performing their courtship dance. Female newts like to wrap their eggs individually in leaves of marginal plants such as water forget-me-nots and brooklime.
Here's how you can support your garden wildlife during March:
Hedgehogs are starting to come out of hibernation and need to build up their fat reserves for breeding. The natural foods they enjoy eating may be scarce so if you want to help a hedgehog that visits your garden then you can always leave out some dog or cat food (chicken flavoured, jelly variety). If any is left in the morning discard it.
Continue to feed birds calorie-rich food such as sunflower hearts, fat balls and suet nibbles to help them prepare for breeding.
If mowing your lawn for the first time, collect your clippings and leave them somewhere to dry out, then place them into a dry corner of your garden, where a queen bumblebee may start a colony. Slow worms may even bask or nest here too.
This is one of my favourite jobs, I would have planned what plants I want to add to the garden at the beginning of winter, giving me time to research what will be available and if it will suit my soil and location.
If you really want to know if a plant is good for wildlife, then buy the ones in flower where you can see insects all over them. Visiting a garden centre monthly will help you to add plants that flower during each month.
Add some more plants such as brooklime and water forget-me-not which newts lay their eggs on, and submerged plants such as hornwort and curled pondweed, which will oxygenate the water and shelter tadpoles from predators.
Variety is key to supporting nature and wildlife. The best thing you can do to get started is add a tree (preferably fruiting), add water, have a pile of logs on the ground, don't use pesticides and don't prune or tidy the garden as often.
From there add as wide a variety of plants and flowers of differing heights, including ground covering ones.
Wild, cultivated, native, non-native are all good choices (at the time of writing). But the best thing you can do for the environment is having the right plant in the right location, this means you don't have to change or improve your soil, or water lots throughout the year.
It's a good idea to add wildflowers to your garden as they are becoming an endangered species and may disappear from the wild.
To improve your garden for wildlife doesn't mean you have to have a scruffy looking garden, so don't beat yourself up if you choose to have mainly short grass as there is insects that like short grass, or want the edges to look tidy, or you choose to deadhead plants because you want more flowers which gives bees a longer feeding period. Every plant you add goes a long way in helping the environment and wildlife.
Wildlife gardening jobs for January
Wildlife gardening jobs for February
Wildlife gardening jobs April
Wildlife gardening jobs May
Wildlife gardening jobs June
Wildlife gardening jobs July
Wildlife gardening jobs for August
Wildlife gardening jobs for November
Wildlife gardening jobs for December
How to attract birds to your garden
How to attract bees to your garden
Sowing and growing wildflowers
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