Start by Loosening the Reins

The neatest garden on the street is rarely the busiest one. Wildlife needs cover, food and water, and it rarely finds all three on a striped lawn with a single clipped shrub. The good news is that encouraging wildlife does not mean letting everything go. It means making a few deliberate choices — a handful of native plants, a shallow dish of water, a corner left to its own devices — and then being patient. Even a small courtyard or a balcony can pull its weight.

Think of your garden as a series of layers: ground cover, mid-height planting, and something taller or climbing. Different creatures use different layers, so a bit of variety matters more than volume.

Plant Native Flowers and Let Them Self-Seed

Native and near-native plants are the reliable choice, because our insects evolved alongside them. You do not need a meadow; a few well-chosen plants in a border or a pot will do real work.

• Early nectar: hellebore, winter honeysuckle, crocus and pulmonaria feed queen bumblebees just out of hibernation.
• Summer staples: lavender, catmint, marjoram, ox-eye daisy, red clover, viper's bugloss and borage.
• Late season: asters, sedum, ivy flowers and teasel keep pollinators going into autumn.

Single, open flowers are far easier for insects to reach than tightly doubled ones. Leave seedheads standing over winter — they feed goldfinches and give insects somewhere to shelter — and let a few plants self-seed rather than replanting every spring. Avoid peat-based compost, and skip insecticides and slug pellets, which travel straight up the food chain.

Add Water, However Small the Space

Water is the single most useful thing you can add, and it does not need to be grand. A shallow saucer with a few pebbles in it, refilled every couple of days, gives birds and bees somewhere to drink and bathe. Bees in particular need a safe landing spot so they do not drown.

If you have room for more, a small pond — even an old washing-up bowl sunk to the rim — will draw in frogs, newts, dragonflies and countless invertebrates. Site it where it gets some sun but not all-day glare, add a gently sloping edge so hedgehogs and frogs can climb out, and plant a little oxygenator such as hornwort. Do not add fish; they eat everything you are trying to attract. If you have small children or visiting toddlers, a raised or fenced pond is the sensible approach.

Leave a Corner Slightly Wild

A patch of untidiness is not laziness — it is habitat. Choose the least visible corner and resist the urge to tidy it.

• Leave a pile of logs, prunings or stones. Dead wood is a nursery for beetles, fungi and solitary bees.
• Let a patch of grass grow long over summer, then cut it in early autumn and remove the clippings.
• Keep fallen leaves under hedges and shrubs rather than bagging them up — hedgehogs, frogs and moths all use leaf litter.
• Allow ivy to flower on a wall or fence; it is one of the best late-autumn nectar sources in the country.

If nettles are welcome, grow them in a sunken pot to stop them spreading. They are the only food plant for several butterfly caterpillars. A compost heap is another quiet winner — slow, warm and full of life.

Feed and House the Birds

Bird feeders work hardest in late winter and early spring, when natural food is thin. Sunflower hearts and a good seed mix suit a wide range of species; nyjer attracts finches, and mealworms will tempt robins and wrens.

Clean feeders every couple of weeks with hot soapy water and let them dry fully — dirty feeders spread disease quickly and undo all your hard work. Move them around occasionally so droppings do not build up in one spot, and keep a shallow dish of water nearby.

For nesting, put up a mix of boxes. A 25mm hole suits blue, great and coal tits; 32mm suits house sparrows and nuthatches. Face boxes between north and east, away from prevailing wind and direct afternoon sun, and mount them two to three metres up with a clear flight path. A sparrow terrace and an open-fronted robin box add variety.

Think in Terms of Seasons and Small Spaces

Wildlife gardening is really about continuity. Aim to have something in flower from February to November, some seedheads through winter, and shelter that stays put all year.

On a balcony or in a tiny yard, stack your planting vertically — climbers such as honeysuckle and jasmine, a herb pot for the kitchen, a window box of lavender — and use a wall-mounted water dish instead of a pond. Group pots together to conserve moisture and create a microclimate. A single large pot of marjoram will keep bees busy for weeks.

Finally, be patient and be a little untidy. The first year, you will notice more bees and fewer aphids. By the second, the birds will have found you. Give it three, and the garden will start to look after itself.