Once you have your garden linked to the wider landscape there are a lot of possibilities to make your garden safe for hedgehogs.

Hedgehog-friendly things

Log piles

The best feature for hedgehogs. They provide a safe, secure place for breeding hibernating and feeding. They act like an insect hotel, providing food supply a year round.

Collect old dead wood from your local park or garden. Pile it up in a quiet corner of your garden. From time to time, you might need to replenish the logs since the wood rots down.

Compost heaps

They provide perfect sites for nesting and feeding. But be very careful when you are turning them with your fork not to hurt the hedgehogs playing hide and seek underneath.

Leaf piles

They are perfect for nesting and bedding. Hedgehogs simply love them. They encourage a rich feast of earwigs, centipedes, and woodlouse.

Time to be lazy

We all tend to have a big garden tidy in spring and in the beginning of Autumn. Unfortunately, this can remove hibernation sites and also reduce the number of insects in the garden. The solution is very simple: just choose a corner of your garden and let nature take care of it. ☺

Wildflower patch

If you are into gardening and you fancy creating a diverse grassland than give it a go. There are a lot of options for annual wildflower mixes. Emorsgate, Landlife, Habitat Aid etc. are seed traders that specialise in native plants. More information can be found on Emorsgate’s website: http://wildseed.co.uk/mixtures

Ponds

They are perfect year-round water supply. Hedgehogs are swimming champions but always make sure there is a gently sloping edge for them to escape.

Hedgehog homes

You can easily make your resident hedgehog happy by putting out a hedgehog house, specially designed for their needs.

Not so hedgehog-friendly things

Unescapable ponds

Hedgehogs are really good at swimming but sadly they often drawn thanks to exhaustion as they are unable to escape from the water.

What you can do:

If you have a pond, make sure you have some kind of a ramp so they can easily get out of the water.

Nets (including sports nets as well)

Hedgehogs are likely to get tangled up in netting. The nets can easily cause fatal damages.

What you can do:  

  1. Make sure unused netting is stored off the ground
  2. Pea netting is high enough from the ground to allow hedgehogs to pass safely
Bonfires

Hedgehogs hibernate when the weather turns colder. A pile of wood is a very attractive place for a hedgehog looking for cosy sleeping options.

What you can do:

Always make sure before burning piles of wood that no one is hiding underneath.

Chemicals

Pesticides such as SLUG PELLETS, herbicides and insecticides are huge hazards to hedgehogs. They lead to the decrease of earthworms, invertebrates and other yummy food sources of hedgehogs.

What you can do:

Instead of using chemicals try to replace them by organic products that do not cause harm to the environment.

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