Encouraging Hedgehogs into a Woodland Garden

Why a Woodland Garden Suits Hedgehogs

Hedgehogs are woodland-edge animals by nature. They evolved to forage along the margins where trees give way to open ground, snuffling through leaf litter for beetles, caterpillars, earthworms and slugs. A garden of native trees and layered shrubs — hazel, hawthorn, oak, birch — recreates that habitat far better than a neat lawn and a few bedding plants. If you already have deep leaf litter, dappled shade and patches of undisturbed ground, you are most of the way there. What hedgehogs need on top of that is cover, continuity and a steady supply of invertebrates.

Leave a Wild Corner, or Two

The single most useful thing you can do is nothing at all. Set aside a corner where the rake never goes and the mower never reaches, and let leaf litter, twigs and decaying vegetation build up. Hedgehogs nest in exactly this material, and so do the beetles and slugs they eat.

• A leaf pile left in shade from autumn onwards — not bagged up and taken to the tip.
• A log pile resting on damp ground, ideally part-buried, which rots slowly and shelters beetles, centipedes and frogs.
• Bramble, ivy or nettles allowed to grow thick. Brambles are a hedgehog's favourite daytime bed: thorny, dry and almost impossible for a fox to push through.
• A compost heap kept as a heap rather than a sealed bin — warm, full of worms and a well-used hibernation site.

Leave the lawn edges unmown too. A rough margin a foot wide gives hedgehogs a safe line to travel along, and it costs you nothing.

Put the Slug Pellets Away

Slug pellets are the most serious garden hazard a hedgehog faces. Hedgehogs eat slugs and snails, and a pelleted slug is a poisoned meal; a hedgehog working along a border may eat several in a night. Even pellets sold as less harmful strip out the invertebrates your hedgehogs depend on, so the kindest approach is to use none at all.

In a woodland garden you rarely need them. Slugs are kept in check by frogs, toads, ground beetles, slow-worms and thrushes, all of which flourish where there is damp cover. Where you do have a problem, water nematodes onto the soil in spring, sink beer traps to ground level, pick slugs off by torchlight after rain, and clear damp debris where they lay eggs. Sharp barriers around young plants beat any chemical.

Create a Hedgehog Highway

A hedgehog needs roughly a mile of foraging ground a night and will happily cross several gardens to find it — but not if solid fencing blocks the way. A hedgehog can squeeze through a gap the size of a CD case, so a 13cm square opening cut at the base of a fence panel or gravel board is all it takes. Put one in every boundary you share.

• Cut the gap at ground level, not raised on a lip, and keep it clear of leaves and soil.
• Talk to your neighbours. A gap in your fence is only useful if theirs has one too, and a whole street of connected gardens becomes a genuine wildlife corridor.
• If a wall or solid base blocks the route, leave a pipe or tunnel underneath.
• Check the gaps each spring: they silt up, get blocked by new decking, or are filled in by well-meaning repairs.

Food and Water Done Properly

Supplementary food helps hedgehogs put on weight, especially in late summer when young hoglets need to reach a safe hibernation weight. Offer meat-based cat or dog food — the pâté texture is easier for them than chunks — or dedicated hedgehog biscuits. Never put out bread and milk: hedgehogs cannot digest lactose and it causes serious diarrhoea.

Use a shallow dish of fresh water, not milk, and place food under a weighted feeding station or an upturned storage box with a 13cm doorway. That keeps cats, foxes and rats out. Feed at dusk, clear leftovers by morning and wash the dishes.

Hibernation, Bonfires and Winter Care

Hedgehogs hibernate roughly from November to March, though mild winters see them wake and move about. A dry, undisturbed nest is essential. A hedgehog box filled with dry leaves, sited under a hedge or against a shed wall away from the prevailing wind, gives them a dependable option — though a heap of logs and leaves in a quiet corner works just as well. Once a hedgehog is settled, leave it alone.

Then watch for the seasonal hazards:

• Bonfires. Build them on the day you light them, or move the pile to clear ground first — a heap of sticks left for a fortnight is a hibernation site.
• Strimmers and mowers. Check long grass by hand before cutting, especially in early summer when hoglets are about.
• Netting and ponds. Keep netting taut and well above ground, and give ponds a sloping edge or ramp so a hedgehog that falls in can climb out.
• Dogs. A curious dog can do real damage to a curled hedgehog, so keep an eye out at dusk.

Do those few things and your woodland garden stops being merely a pleasant place to visit and becomes somewhere hedgehogs can live — foraging along the borders, nesting under the brambles, and doing the quiet work wild gardens have always done.