For nature lovers in the United Kingdom and Ireland, leaving a small corner of your garden to grow wild can attract lots of wildlife, but if you want to attract specific kinds of animals, insects or birds, there are lots of simple things you can do. Here are some tips:

Moths and butterflies

The flowers in your garden will already attract butterflies to feed, but leaving an area of stinging nettles in a sunny spot will also encourage them to breed. Planting campion and rosebay willow herb will attract lots of moths, and they in turn they may lure bats and birds such as house martins, swallows or swifts.

Hedgehogs

Most gardeners will view slugs as a major nuisance, and they do their best to eradicate them and the damage they do to other plants. However, if you're willing to put up with a little plant damage, a thriving slug population is a sure way of attracting hedgehogs into your garden.

Mice and voles

Mice a voles love to burrow under rocks, so building a rockery is a great way to provide them with a ready made home. Try to build the rockery at the far end of the garden to avoid any temptation there may be for them to enter your house.

Squirrels

Squirrels will eat bird food, but sometimes leaving a lot of bird food around your garden can also attract unwanted visitors such as rats. The red squirrel's natural diet includes pine cone seeds, berries and fruit but they will also eat insects and eggs. You can encourage them by having fruit and berry-bearing plants in your garden. If you have a mix of grey and red squirrels living nearby, it's not always a good idea to attract them both into your garden as the grey squirrels sometimes carry diseases that can kill the rarer red squirrel. Don't over feed red squirrels. Leave them just a little food to compliment their natural diet.

Birds

The RSPB believe that putting food out for birds in the winter probably saves the lives of up to a million birds very year in the United Kingdom. Leaving out food in early morning and late evening is best, and if you can supply live food, such as mealworms or maggots in the spring, it really helps birds to feed their young. The more varied the food and types of feeders, the bigger variety of bird species you'll attract.

Frogs and Toads

Both frogs and toads will appreciate an area of long grass or a shady area near a pond. A rockery near a pond is another favourite place, and toads love to burrow in the damp warmth of rotting compost heap.

Foxes

Over half of the urban foxes diet consists of human handouts and they will eat a wide variety of foods such as berries, vegetables and fresh meat. For the best chance of attracting a fox, leave the food in dark and quiet part of the garden away from noise and light.

Learn more about this author, Robert Stephenson.
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