18-19_Life Begins 19/11/2013 15:26 Page 2
gardening
Water is precious, please use it wisely
Our gardening features are sponsored by:
Bees are fast becoming a rare sight in British gardens
Here’s a few suggestions on how
gardeners can help our wildlife, from
celebrities backing the scheme
“This campaign gives you the
perfect excuse to be a bit lazy
and let the grass grow long research has shown that the
lawn contains more native
species than any other garden
feature,”
Diarmuid Gavin
I
n May, the State of Nature report compiled by 25 wildlife
organisations found that, for a range of reasons such as loss
of habitat, 60% of the 3,148 UK animal and plant species
assessed have declined in the past 50 years. Hedgehog
numbers have also reduced by a third since the millennium,
and tortoiseshell butterflies, once common in gardens, have
declined by 77%.
“What’s most alarming is that many of the ‘common’ garden
species - hedgehogs, house sparrows, starlings and common
frogs, for example - are becoming much less common,” says
Helen Bostock, Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) horticultural
advisor. “Historically these species have done well in our
gardens and so their decline is something we really need to
sit up and take no ѥ