Gardening for nature this autumn

This is the perfect season to be out hunting and collecting plant seeds to sow in your own garden and watch them grow. If you find them in your local area, that’s a good sign they will thrive in your garden, and you’ll be increasing habitat and food for wildlife too.

At this time of year, the most common seeds to find are from trees, such as acorns, hazelnuts and flowering plants with stiff stems such as teasel. Larger seeds such as acorns can be pushed into a little pot of peat-free compost or garden soil – sow them to about three times their depth. Give them a drink of water and leave them outdoors to germinate. Smaller seeds such as teasel seeds can be sprinkled thinly into a pot and topped with compost.

Autumn is also a great time for planting trees, shrubs, and hedges, to give them plenty of time to get established before winter. If you have room in the garden, you might like to plan a mini-woodland or new shrub border to attract birds all year. Container-grown plants can be planted at any time of the year, but you can save money at this time of year by opting for bare-rooted hedging, or root-balled trees and shrubs.

I’ve started to notice song thrushes and blackbirds appearing in the garden, venturing onto the lawn in search for worms and fallen fruit. This is a great time to start cleaning out and topping up bird feeders to provide our feathered friends with additional food supplies as the weather turns colder. If you have any berry bushes in your garden, these create a bountiful feast for our garden birds. Small flocks of greenfinches can be a common sight at bird tables, sometimes queueing up with chaffinches and sparrows to take turns at feeders.

Don’t forget that RSPB NI are asking for you to have your say on the future of nature, share what you love about it and what you would miss if nature disappeared.

The People’s Plan for Nature will see people from all walks of life sharing ideas for how we can protect and restore nature in Northern Ireland, and small changes like planting for nature can really make a difference.

Have your say: www.peoplesplanfornature.org