Wildlife Gardens
You don't have to live in the woods to attract beautiful wildlife to your home. In fact The Early Show's gardening guru Charlie Dimmock says you only have to understand the birds and the bees, and maybe the butterflies too.
From the Chelsea Flower Show, Dimmock says wildlife gardens are really big this year. One of its gardens won a gold medal for its wonderful planting, which will attract bees, birds and butterflies.
So if you are thinking about planting a garden, Dimmock says you want to encourage bees, birds and butterflies because they pollinate your plants and eat all the pests and diseases. They also add a lot of movement and color to your garden.
You don't only have to use native plants all the time, you can use cottage or garden species plants that have high nectar and pollen for butterflies and also autumn fruits for birds.
When choosing the flowers for your garden, think about their shape, because butterflies like tubular flowers like lovely foxgloves and very delicate cowslips.
Bumblebees like a much more open flower like daisies and delicate poppies. You can even make a refuge for bees by gluing bits of bamboo together.
At The New Forest in Southern England where Dimmock grew up, she says you can find lots and lots of wildlife there. So if you want to attract wildlife to your garden, she says it's very easy, all you need to do is one or two things.
When you're deciding where to put your bird feeders, trees are ideal; birds don't like their food in big open wide spaces; they like to be able to hop along to it. The other thing about bird feeders is you often get lots of over-wintering aphids on the bark, so they'll pick all those off as well.
One thing about a wildlife garden is you don't want to be over tidy so it's a good idea not to trim the lawn right up to the tree trunks because you get lots more flowers and weeds, which attracts more insects to the garden and the birds feed on those.
All forms of wildlife need water and ideally it's best to have a pond, but if you don't have the space, the next best thing is a birdbath. If the birdbath is deep, it's worth putting some pebbles in so the birds can land easily along with the butterflies.
Pond skaters on the surface of the water attract lots of wildlife, bats hedgehogs and birds as they come to feed on them.
One thing to remember if you want to encourage lots of wildlife in your garden is don't use insecticides, because not only do they kill off the things that eat your plants, they'll kill off all the wildlife and you couldn't live without all the birdsong.