Why a Small Corner Is Worth the Effort

It is tempting to think that wildlife gardening needs an acre of meadow and a pond the size of a tennis court. In practice, a corner of a modest suburban plot — even a patch a metre square — can become a genuine refuge. Gardens cover a larger area of the UK than our national nature reserves, and because they sit alongside one another they form informal green corridors. A single border of nectar-rich flowers can link the park at the end of your road to the hedgerow two streets away, giving bees, butterflies and birds somewhere to rest and refuel as they move through the landscape.

There is a reward for you as well. Tending a wildlife corner is a form of slow travel without leaving home: it asks you to notice small changes, to work with the seasons rather than against them, and to sit still for ten minutes at a time. Start by choosing a spot that gets at least six hours of sun a day, ideally with some shelter from the worst of the wind. If your only available corner is shady, do not despair — plenty of native plants, and most of the creatures you want to attract, will manage perfectly well in dappled light.

Plant Native Flowers That Earn Their Keep

Native plants and long-established garden favourites tend to support far more insects than highly bred, double-flowered varieties, which often have little or no nectar. Aim for a long flowering season: something in April, plenty in June and July, and a few late performers for bees stocking up before winter.

• Foxgloves — biennial, happy in shade or half-shade, and a favourite of bumblebees, which crawl right inside the bells.
• Field scabious and small scabious — soft lilac pincushions that butterflies and hoverflies adore, flowering well into September.
• Wild marjoram — a gentle, sprawling herb for a sunny edge; leave a few stems to dry and you have oregano for the kitchen.
• Ox-eye daisy and yarrow — cheerful, drought-tolerant and useful for hoverflies and tiny solitary bees.
• Bird's-foot trefoil — low-growing, good in a rough lawn, and the food plant for the common blue butterfly.
• Betony and hedge woundwort — understated, dependable and magnets for carder bees.

Plant in generous clumps of three or more rather than dotting single specimens about, and resist the urge to deadhead everything. Seed heads feed goldfinches and provide winter structure. If you have room for one small shrub, choose an aucuba or a native hazel; both give cover and, in the hazel's case, catkins in February when little else is on offer.

Add a Shallow Dish of Water

Water is the single quickest win. A saucer from an old terracotta pot, a shallow plant tray or a glazed dish is perfect, provided the water is no more than three or four centimetres deep. Deep sides are a hazard, so build a little beach: half-submerge some pebbles or broken crocks along one edge so bees, wasps and beetles can land and drink safely.

Site the dish in partial shade to slow evaporation, and raise it on a couple of bricks if cats patrol your garden. Top it up daily through summer with rainwater from a butt rather than tap water, which is treated and less appealing to some creatures. Empty and refresh it every few days so it does not become a mosquito nursery, and keep a nearby twig or two as climbing access. Birds will arrive first, then the smaller visitors — watch for a comma butterfly or a leafcutter bee pausing at the rim.

Learn to Love a Little Untidiness

The tidiest gardens are often the quietest. Leaving a few areas alone creates the shelters and overwintering sites that insects need.

• Delay the cut. Leave seed heads and stems standing until late February or early March, then cut them back to 30–45 cm rather than ground level. Hollow stems are prime nesting sites for solitary bees.
• Keep a log pile. Three or four short lengths of old wood stacked in a shady corner will rot slowly and shelter beetles, centipedes and, if you are lucky, a frog.
• Let a patch of grass grow long. Even a square metre left uncut through summer gives shelter and, with a little luck, a few wildflowers.
• Leave the leaves. Sweep autumn litter under hedges instead of bagging it; hedgehogs, moths and ladybirds all overwinter in the layer.
• Skip the chemicals. No slug pellets, no sprays. A gravel barrier and a nightly torchlight patrol will deal with most problems.

Layer It Up for Shelter

Wildlife responds to structure. A small garden can still offer three tiers: ground cover such as bugle or dead nettle, mid-level planting of herbs and flowers, and a climber or shrub overhead. Honeysuckle and ivy are excellent choices — the first scents the evening air for moths, the second provides dense cover and late berries. Fix a nest box facing north-east, about two metres up and away from a feeding station, and a simple bee hotel in the sunniest spot you have, close to flowers.

Sit Still and Watch

Treat the corner as a destination. Put a chair where you can see it without looming over it, and give yourself a set time each week to do nothing but look. Keep a small notebook and jot down first sightings: hoverflies in March, the first red admiral, the day the sparrows start gathering nesting material. Over a season you will build a record that no guidebook can give you, and you will find that the slowest hour of your week is also the one that leaves you calmest.