Invite reptiles into your garden
Our step-by-step guide to a warm welcome for our cold-blooded guests.
1. Open the gates
The first step is to make sure reptiles (and other wildlife) can get into your garden. A hedge is a better garden boundary for wildlife than a fence, providing shelter and letting small animals pass through. If a hedge isn’t an option, consider cutting a small hole in the bottom of your fence.
2. Make a splash
Nothing attracts wildlife like water. Add a pond to your garden, wildlife will come. If you’re lucky, grass snakes might even hunt there, searching for frogs and other amphibians. They’re excellent swimmers, wriggling through the water with ease.
3. Offer a sunbed
Reptiles bask to raise their body temperature. Grass snakes and common lizards like open spots, so a sun-drenched rock or log could be perfect. Slow-worms prefer to warm up under cover. A piece of slate, wooden board or roofing felt could make a great slow-worm sauna. Place it in a south-facing, sunny position, on top of vegetation rather than bare ground.
4. Start composting
Composting is more than just a great way to recycle garden waste. Slow-worms will slither through a compost heap in search of slugs. It might even serve as a natural incubator for the eggs of a grass snake, so avoid turning compost from June to late September to avoid damaging them. Place your heap in a sunny spot, ideally by a hedge or long grass.
5. Let your grass grow
Leave an area of lawn to grow wild, providing cover for reptiles. If you need to cut some long grass, walk through it first to give any hiding reptiles the chance to move.
6. Pile up logs
A log pile is the ultimate multi-use facility. It can offer shelter for reptiles to hide away over winter, attract insects and other wildlife that reptiles feed on, and provide a prominent perch for basking in the sunlight.
Image credit: Tom Marshall