Of that, £53 million will support the planting of up to 500,000 trees outside traditional woodlands including in streets, parks and places close to where people live and work. A further £26 million will support local authorities and mayors delivering Local Nature Recovery Strategies.

It is a sizeable investment, but there is an equally important idea behind it: nature recovery works best when it happens close to home.

And you don’t need a multi-million-pound budget to take part. A garden, balcony, patio, window box or shared community space can all become part of a much larger network of habitats for wildlife.

Here are seven practical ways to start.

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1. Plant a tree. Even if you only have a small garden

The government’s new Community Trees Fund will focus specifically on trees outside woodlands: the trees we encounter in streets, gardens, parks and neighbourhoods. That makes sense. Trees can provide food and shelter for wildlife, capture rainwater, offer shade and help cool urban areas. Government figures accompanying the announcement suggest mature trees can intercept more than 15,000 litres of rainwater each year, while urban trees can also help reduce temperatures during hot weather.

What can you do?

If you have space, consider planting a native or wildlife-friendly tree.

For smaller gardens, look at compact varieties such as crab apple, rowan or hawthorn rather than assuming you need room for an oak tree.

No garden? You may be able to support a local community tree-planting project instead.

2. Turn part of your lawn into a mini meadow

One of the easiest ways to create more habitat is simply to mow less.

Choose a small area of lawn and leave it longer through spring and summer. You can introduce native wildflowers or simply see what appears naturally.

Longer grass provides shelter for insects and creates feeding opportunities for birds and other wildlife.

You don’t have to abandon the whole lawn. A metre-wide strip, an unmown corner or an area around a tree can make a difference.

Think less bowling green, more miniature ecosystem.

3. Create a tiny source of water

Wetlands are another important part of local nature recovery strategies because they can support biodiversity while also helping landscapes hold water.

You can recreate the same principle on a tiny scale.

A garden pond does not need to be large. Even a watertight container sunk into the ground can provide drinking and bathing opportunities for insects, birds and other wildlife.

Add stones or branches so creatures can get in and out safely, and allow native aquatic plants to establish.

Avoid introducing fish into a wildlife pond — they can eat many of the insects and larvae you are trying to encourage.

4. Build a wildlife corridor

One isolated wildlife-friendly garden is useful.

A street full of them is much better.

Animals need to move between habitats to find food, shelter and mates, so one of the most valuable things neighbours can do is make their gardens more connected.

That might mean creating a small gap at the bottom of a fence for hedgehogs, growing climbing plants along boundaries or planting hedges rather than installing solid fencing.

Local Nature Recovery Strategies are designed around a similar principle: joining individual areas together so nature recovery isn’t restricted to isolated pockets.

Your garden can be part of exactly the same idea.

5. Replace ornamental planting with something wildlife can use

You don’t have to turn your garden into wilderness.

Instead, look at what you already grow and gradually introduce more plants that provide pollen, nectar, berries, seeds or shelter.

Good options include plants such as:

• lavender

• foxglove

• thyme

• honeysuckle

• ivy

• hawthorn

• crab apple

A mixture of plants flowering at different times of year can help provide food for pollinators across a longer season.

And don’t be too quick to remove ivy. Mature ivy can be an exceptionally valuable source of late-season nectar and winter berries.

6. Leave some things untidy

Nature is not particularly interested in garden design awards.

Dead wood, fallen leaves, hollow stems and slightly overgrown corners can provide habitat for insects, fungi and small animals.

Try leaving a small pile of logs somewhere sheltered.

Allow fallen leaves to remain beneath shrubs.

Leave some plant stems standing through winter rather than cutting everything back immediately.

Sometimes rewilding is less about doing more and more about stopping doing quite so much.

7. Think beyond your own garden

The government’s funding announcement puts communities at the centre of nature restoration. You can do the same.

Talk to neighbours about creating connected wildlife-friendly gardens. Get involved with a local Friends of the Park group. Volunteer for tree planting or river restoration. Suggest pollinator planting on communal land.

England is now divided into 48 Local Nature Recovery Strategy areas, designed to identify where action can have the greatest environmental benefit.

Finding out what is happening in your own area is a good place to start.

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How does LettsSafari fit in?

At LettsSafari, we believe rewilding doesn’t have to mean buying hundreds of acres and releasing wolves. It can mean giving nature a little more space wherever you live. LettsSafari helps people take part in nature recovery in two ways.

First, we support our own smaller-scale rewilding projects in the UK, helping turn subscriptions into practical action for nature.

Second, we encourage people to rewild the spaces around them - gardens, balconies and neighbourhoods — with simple ideas anyone can try.

The government’s £79 million investment demonstrates what can happen at national and local-authority level.

LettsSafari is about the other end of the equation:

What can each of us do ourselves?

A tree here.
A pond there.
A patch of long grass.
A few more flowers.
A gap beneath a fence.

Individually, they are small changes.

Connect enough of them together and you begin to create something much bigger.

You don’t need a huge garden to make a difference for pollinators.

A few pots on a balcony, a window box, a small patch of grass or a community garden can all provide food for bees, butterflies and other insects. The key is choosing plants that provide nectar and pollen, and thinking about what will be flowering at different times of the year.

Here are some plants to consider if you want to make your city garden more pollinator-friendly.

Spring

Early spring can be a difficult time for pollinators, when there are fewer flowers around and many insects are just becoming active again.

Plants such as crocuses, snowdrops and primroses can provide an early source of food. Borage is another useful choice and can continue flowering into summer.

If you have space, planting a mixture of bulbs and early-flowering plants means there can be something available as soon as temperatures begin to rise.

Summer

Summer brings plenty of options.

Lavender is a popular choice for bees and can work well in pots as well as borders. Foxgloves, thyme, oregano and marjoram can also attract pollinators, while plants such as verbena and scabious can provide nectar for bees and butterflies.

Try to plant a mixture rather than relying on one type of flower. Having different shapes, colours and flowering periods can help attract a wider range of insects.

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Autumn

As summer flowers begin to fade, it’s important to keep something flowering into autumn.

Ivy is particularly valuable at this time of year, providing late-season flowers for insects as well as shelter and berries for birds. Sedums and asters are also good options for extending the flowering season.

Autumn is also a good time to start thinking about what you’ll plant for next spring. Many bulbs can be planted in autumn, ready to provide an early source of nectar once winter ends.

Winter

There aren’t as many flowering plants available in winter, but there are still some options.

Winter-flowering heather and winter honeysuckle can provide food when there isn’t much else around. If you have a sheltered space, they can be a useful addition to a wildlife-friendly garden.

But helping pollinators isn’t only about planting flowers.

Leaving some areas of your garden a little less tidy can provide important places for insects to shelter through the colder months. Fallen leaves, hollow stems, dead wood and undisturbed soil can all provide habitat.

Don’t have a garden?

You can still help!

A few pots on a balcony or windowsill can provide valuable food for pollinators. Choose a couple of plants with different flowering periods and avoid using pesticides where possible.

You could also get involved with a local community garden or help improve a shared green space. These spaces can provide much larger areas of habitat when lots of people contribute.

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🐝 Think beyond individual plants

One of the easiest ways to make a garden more useful for pollinators is to think about it as a whole habitat rather than simply a collection of flowers!

Try to have something flowering across as much of the year as possible, include different types of plants and leave some areas undisturbed.

And don’t worry about making everything perfect. A garden with a few wild corners can be much more useful to wildlife than one that’s constantly cut back and tidied.

Whether it’s a balcony in a city centre or a small garden at home, every bit of planting can give pollinators another place to feed.

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But one small project in the Tamar Valley demonstrates something much more useful. At Larkrise, near St Dominic, around 10 acres of previously poorly drained land have been allowed to become wilder. Less than seven years after the project began, the site now contains thriving native plants, young trees, ponds, hedgerows and a growing collection of wildlife.

Foxes, roe deer, barn owls, moorhens, weasels, voles and shrews have all been recorded there. Swallows skim across the ponds, goldfinches feed among the plants and butterflies move through areas that were once much less diverse.

What did Larkrise actually do?

One of the useful things about the Larkrise story is that the changes aren’t particularly complicated.

The project has combined several relatively straightforward approaches:

• allowing native grasses and plants to establish

• protecting naturally regenerating trees

• strengthening and retaining hedgerows

• digging ponds

• introducing appropriate indigenous plants, seeds and cuttings

• reducing the pressure from grazing

• leaving space for natural processes to take over.

None of these actions is especially dramatic in isolation. Together, however, they create something wildlife desperately needs: a mixture of habitats.

Water attracts one group of species. Native plants attract another. Trees provide shelter, food and nesting opportunities. Hedgerows become wildlife corridors. Areas of longer vegetation give small mammals and insects places to live.

Instead of thinking about rewilding as one big project, it is often more helpful to think of it as creating lots of small opportunities for nature.

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How can you apply the same idea at home?

You probably don’t have 10 acres. Fortunately, you don’t need them. The principles visible at Larkrise can be scaled down to a garden, courtyard, community space, school grounds or even a collection of pots on a balcony.

1. Create some water

A pond is one of the most effective ways to increase the variety of wildlife using a garden.

And it doesn’t have to be large.

A small container pond can provide drinking water and habitat for insects, while a larger wildlife pond may attract frogs, newts, dragonflies and birds.

If you create one, make sure wildlife can get in and out easily and avoid adding chemicals.

2. Let something grow

One of the easiest rewilding techniques is also one of the cheapest: stop cutting everything.

Leave a section of lawn longer. Allow some plants to flower and seed. Leave a few stems standing through winter.

These slightly untidier areas can provide food and shelter for insects, which in turn support birds and other wildlife.

You don’t have to abandon the whole garden. Even a small wild corner can help.

3. Choose native plants

Native flowers, shrubs and trees have developed alongside UK wildlife and can provide valuable sources of food and shelter.

Depending on the space available, consider plants that produce:

• nectar for pollinators

• berries for birds

• seeds for birds and small mammals

• dense vegetation for shelter.

Even several carefully chosen pots can create a miniature feeding station.

4. Keep your hedges

A hedge isn’t simply a boundary.

It can be a miniature ecosystem.

Hedges provide nesting places, berries, insects, shelter and routes that wildlife can use to move between habitats.

If you already have one, consider allowing it to become slightly thicker and less manicured. Where space allows, planting a mixture of native hedge species can create even more variety.

5. Protect natural regeneration

At Larkrise, naturally occurring young oak trees were protected rather than simply planting everything from scratch.

You can use the same principle at home.

Before removing a seedling or an unexpected plant, find out what it is. Sometimes nature has already started doing the planting for you.

The most sustainable plant may be the one that’s already growing.

6. Reduce disturbance

Rewilding isn’t always about adding things.

Sometimes it means doing less.

Reduce pesticide use. Leave fallen leaves beneath shrubs. Keep some dead wood. Avoid constantly disturbing every corner of the garden.

Small areas that humans largely leave alone can become valuable refuges.

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Think in habitats, not individual species

It’s tempting to approach wildlife gardening by deciding you want more bees, butterflies, hedgehogs or birds.

A better starting point is often:

What habitats can I create?

Build the habitat and wildlife has a reason to arrive.

A useful small-scale rewilding checklist might be:

Water + native plants + shelter + food + somewhere undisturbed.

You don’t need all five immediately. Start with one and build from there.

Five things you can do this weekend

If you want to put the Larkrise lesson into practice straight away:

1. Leave one patch unmown.

2. Add a small source of water.

3. Plant one native or wildlife-friendly plant.

4. Create a sheltered corner using leaves, logs or vegetation.

5. Spend ten minutes watching what wildlife is already there.

That final step matters. Rewilding isn’t only about changing the landscape. It’s also about noticing the nature that is already returning.

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Across the Barbican, you’ll find planted gardens, trees, water and the famous Conservatory, creating a network of green spaces within one of the busiest parts of London.

The Barbican Conservatory is probably the best-known example. Built around the theatre’s fly tower, it is home to around 1,500 species of plants and trees, alongside fish and terrapins.

Outside, the gardens and Lakeside provide another type of urban habitat. The water supports wildlife including coots, mallards, herons and moorhens, while the Barbican has introduced more pollinator-friendly planting, bug hotels and bee colonies. The team also works closely with the surrounding community to look after the area.

One of the most noticeable features is the large pond in the middle of the estate. Surrounded by trees, planting and the buildings of the Barbican, it creates an important pocket of water and habitat right in the centre of the estate.

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The community element is a big part of what keeps these spaces thriving. Residents have opportunities to learn about the planting and wildlife around the estate, while events and workshops bring people together around gardening and nature. The Barbican has also worked with community organisations on activities including planting workshops and nature-focused events.

It’s a good example of how urban nature can become part of a community’s everyday environment. The Barbican’s green spaces are not only places to visit, but spaces that residents, gardeners and volunteers continue to care for and shape.

What makes the Barbican interesting from an urban nature perspective is that none of these spaces are particularly removed from the city. They’re surrounded by offices, roads and buildings, but still create opportunities for plants, insects, birds and other wildlife!

In one of the most built-up parts of London, the Barbican shows what can happen when greenery is given a proper place within the city and people are given a role in looking after it!

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Garden rewilding is a journey. We’re excited to share our journey with you through “The Nature Reserve Next Door: How to Turn Any Garden Into a Wildlife Sanctuary”.

Chapter Six: The Seasonal Calendar and Ongoing Stewardship - Part 1.

Rewilded gardens are not maintenance-free. They are maintenance-shifted. You mow less but observe more. You prune less often but more thoughtfully. You tidy later — and you leave more standing through winter. The temporal discipline of a rewilded garden is entirely different from that of a conventional one, and understanding it is as important as any planting choice.

Two overarching principles govern the seasonal management of a rewilded garden:

• Meadow management is primarily about timing and the removal of arisings — cutting at the right point in the plant’s cycle and removing all cut material to prevent fertility build-up

• Hedge and scrub management must respect nesting season, which in Britain runs from approximately March to August — and this is not just good practice but a legal requirement under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981

January

January is a planning and observation month. Map damp areas after winter rain — these reveal where a bog or pond would be self-watering. Note winter sun angles across the garden, which often surprise: a space that is in full shade in summer may receive generous winter light once deciduous trees are bare. Keep all habitat structures undisturbed: log piles, leaf litter, brush piles, and compost heaps are overwintering refuges for hundreds of invertebrate species and potentially hedgehogs, which do not emerge from hibernation until soil temperatures rise consistently above 5°C.

February

Begin planting bare-root hedge whips and trees where weather allows — the soil should be unfrozen and workable. Soak bare roots in water for 30 minutes before planting and as an extra boost you can use a mycorrhizal powder on the roots to accelerate establishment. Set up rainwater capture infrastructure if not already in place (natural or built water butts). Watch for signs of early nesting activity in mild years — wrens and robins may begin nest inspection from late February, and a cautious approach to hedge cutting should begin now rather than waiting for March.

March

Reduce mowing to a mosaic pattern and leave early flowers. Dandelions and lesser celandine are among the most important early nectar sources for emerging bumblebee queens and should not be eliminated. Major hedge cutting becomes legally and ecologically risky from March — check carefully for active nests before any work. Pond margins begin their annual cycle: look for frog and toad spawn in the shallow areas; but do not disturb them.

April

Peak early pollinator support month. Ensure spring flowers are accessible and unsprayed. Begin preparing meadow conversion areas if planning a spring sowing. Also, begin pond creation if it is not already done — frogs and toads will have finished spawning by mid-April in most British locations and new ponds can be excavated without disturbing them. Watch for orange-tip butterflies on lady’s smock and garlic mustard, as these indicate that hedgerow and damp-meadow habitat nearby is functioning well.

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That is one of the most useful lessons from Pear Tree Park in Ealing, West London, where a former golf course is being transformed into a more varied urban landscape of wildflower meadows, native trees and wetlands. More than 5,000 trees have already been planted, while volunteers are also helping restore the nearby River Brent by removing invasive plants and replacing them with native wetland species.

The scale may be bigger than the average garden, but the principles are surprisingly easy to borrow. Here are five ways to apply the same thinking at home.

1. Replace some lawn with longer grass

One of the simplest things you can do is mow less. A closely cut lawn offers relatively little shelter or food for wildlife. Leaving even a small section longer creates habitat for insects and allows more plants to flower.

You do not need to abandon the whole garden! Try:

• leaving a strip along a fence or hedge unmown

• creating a circular “mini meadow” in the lawn

• mowing paths through longer grass so the garden still looks intentional

• reducing mowing frequency rather than stopping completely

The objective is variety. Different grass heights create different habitats.

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2. Plant more native species

Pear Tree Park combines native trees with wildflower areas and wetland planting. You can copy that approach on a much smaller scale. Native plants have evolved alongside UK wildlife and can provide food and shelter for insects, birds and other animals. Depending on your space, consider native species such as:

• foxglove

• oxeye daisy

• red campion

• wild marjoram

• hawthorn

• rowan

• hazel

Even a few pots planted with wildlife-friendly species can help. The important thing is not to create a perfect “wild garden”. It is to increase the number and variety of plants available to wildlife.

3. Add water

One of Pear Tree Park’s strengths is its mix of habitats, including wetlands. Water can dramatically increase the number of species visiting even a small garden, and you do not necessarily need a large pond. A mini pond can be made using a watertight container sunk into the ground or placed on a patio.

Add:

• rainwater where possible

• aquatic plants

• stones or logs so wildlife can get in and out safely

• different depths if your container allows it

Avoid adding fish, which can eat insect larvae and other small pond wildlife. Even a container pond can attract insects, birds and amphibians.

4. Create layers, not just plants

Successful habitats are rarely flat. Woodland, meadow and wetland environments all contain different layers where wildlife can feed, hide and reproduce. You can recreate that structure in a garden by combining:

• trees

• shrubs

• flowers

• grasses

• ground cover

• dead wood

• leaf litter

A small pile of logs in a quiet corner can provide shelter for insects and fungi. Leaving some fallen leaves beneath shrubs rather than clearing everything away can create another valuable microhabitat. Rewilding is often as much about what you stop removing as what you start planting.

5. Connect your patch to the wider landscape

Perhaps the biggest idea behind Pear Tree Park is connectivity. The park forms part of plans for a wider West London Regional Park, designed to connect green and blue spaces across the area. Wildlife benefits when habitats are connected rather than isolated. Your garden can become part of the same idea.

Simple actions include:

• creating gaps beneath fences for hedgehogs

• growing climbing plants along walls and fences

• planting hedges instead of relying entirely on solid fencing

• talking to neighbours about creating connected wildlife areas

• planting flowers that provide nectar across different seasons

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How LettsSafari helps

LettsSafari is built around the idea that nature recovery can happen at both ends of the scale. Subscribers help fund practical rewilding projects in the UK while also receiving ideas and inspiration for bringing more wildlife into their own gardens, balconies and neighbourhoods.

Small actions at home complement larger habitat restoration projects. You do not need to own a woodland - you just need to make your patch slightly better for nature than it was yesterday.

And if thousands of people do the same thing, those small patches begin to connect.

When people hear the word rewilding, they often imagine huge estates, forests and vast areas of countryside.

But rewilding doesn’t have to happen on a massive scale.

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Our new e-book, The Definitive Guide to Smaller-Scale Rewilding, looks at how gardens, parks, farms, community spaces and other smaller areas can all play a part in nature recovery.

We’ve created the guide to make rewilding feel more practical and accessible. You don’t need hundreds of acres or specialist knowledge to start creating better habitats for wildlife. Sometimes, it can be as simple as leaving an area of grass unmown, planting native wildflowers or creating a small pond.

Why we made it

After years of working on our own rewilding projects, we wanted to bring together what we’ve learned and make it useful to people who want to do something themselves.

Smaller-scale rewilding can look different everywhere. It might be a community garden, a section of a park, a wildlife-friendly garden or a small piece of farmland.

A sneak peek

One of the sections of the guide looks at creating microhabitats.

A successful rewilding space doesn’t need to be one single type of habitat. Even on a small plot, creating a mix of grassland, scrub, woodland and water can provide different resources for different species.

For example, a small patch of wild grassland can become a mini meadow, providing food and shelter for insects and other wildlife. In some cases, simply reducing how often you mow an existing lawn can allow wildflowers and other plants to appear naturally.

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It’s one of the ideas we explore throughout the guide: you don’t always need to add more to a space. Sometimes, giving nature a little more room to do its own thing is enough.

The Definitive Guide to Smaller-Scale Rewilding is available now on e-book for only £9.99!

Keep an eye out for the hardcover coming soon!

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And sometimes it begins in a garden shed.

Glowworms have returned to Nosterfield Nature Reserve in North Yorkshire for the first time in more than 100 years, following a remarkably low-budget conservation project involving an ecologist, volunteers and hundreds of tiny glowworm larvae.

Independent ecologist Pete Cooper and volunteer “glow-getters” bred glowworms in captivity before releasing larvae at Nosterfield in 2024. Because glowworms take around two years to mature, the team had a long wait before discovering whether the experiment had worked.

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This summer, volunteers recorded up to 12 glowing female glowworms over several weeks - the first encouraging evidence that the insects can once again complete their lifecycle at the reserve.

It’s a wonderful conservation story. But it also contains some useful lessons for anyone interested in rewilding a garden, neighbourhood or small patch of land.

First, create the habitat. Then let wildlife find it

One of the most important parts of the Nosterfield story actually happened long before the glowworms arrived. The reserve occupies former quarry land. Since 1997, the Lower Ure Conservation Trust has gradually transformed parts of the site into species-rich grassland and wetland habitat.

Wildlife followed.

Bitterns and marsh harriers now use the site, and the restored habitat eventually became suitable enough for conservationists to attempt the return of glowworms. There’s a useful principle here for small-scale rewilding:

Don’t start by asking which animal you want to attract. Start by asking what habitat you can create.

Food, shelter, water and places to reproduce are what bring wildlife back.

1. Leave part of your garden untidy

Glowworms are one of many species affected by our enthusiasm for neatness. Short grass, cleared leaves, clipped edges and constantly disturbed soil might look tidy to us, but they remove hiding places and food sources for insects and other wildlife. Try leaving one area largely alone.

That might mean:

• letting grass grow longer

• leaving fallen leaves beneath shrubs

• allowing dead stems to remain through winter

• creating a small pile of logs or branches

• reducing how often you cut vegetation

You don’t need to turn the entire garden into wilderness. Even one less-managed corner gives nature somewhere to operate on its own terms.

2. Turn down the lights

There is another particularly relevant lesson from glowworms: darkness is habitat too.

Female glowworms use bioluminescence to attract males. Artificial lighting can interfere with that signalling, and increased night-time illumination is one factor associated with their decline. Making your garden more wildlife-friendly can therefore be as simple as switching something off. Try turning off unnecessary garden lighting overnight, using motion sensors rather than permanent illumination and avoiding bright lights around hedges, trees and areas of long grass. Your electricity bill may appreciate this particular rewilding project too!

3. Grow a variety of plants

Nature likes variety. Different heights, flowers, grasses, shrubs and groundcover create different microhabitats. Instead of designing every part of a garden around a single lawn or planting style, aim for layers. You could combine longer grass with flowering plants, shrubs, climbers and a small tree. Native plants can be particularly valuable because they have evolved alongside local insects and other wildlife. More plant diversity usually means more opportunities for wildlife.

4. Reduce chemicals

Glowworm larvae feed on snails and slugs. That is a useful reminder that species we sometimes regard as garden pests are actually part of much larger food webs. Slug pellets, pesticides and herbicides can affect far more than their intended targets. Where possible, allow natural predators to do some of the work instead. Beetles, birds, frogs, hedgehogs and other species all help regulate populations naturally. A slightly nibbled leaf may simply be evidence that your garden ecosystem is working.

5. Add water

One of the most effective things you can do for wildlife is also one of the simplest: provide water. And of course with an unusuallly hot Summer behind us, we have the space to revisit this. A pond can support insects, amphibians and birds, but it doesn’t need to be large. A container pond, shallow basin or buried tub can create valuable habitat surprisingly quickly. Make sure animals have an easy way in and out, and avoid introducing fish if wildlife is your priority.

6. Think in years, not weekends

Perhaps the most important lesson from Nosterfield is patience. Glowworm larvae were first released in 2024. The conservationists behind the project had to wait two years before seeing glowing adults. And even now, they won’t know whether a genuinely self-sustaining population has been created until later generations mature. Rewilding works on nature’s timetable. Plant a hedge today and birds may use it for decades. Dig a pond and dragonflies might discover it within weeks. Leave grass long and wildflowers may gradually emerge over several seasons. The important thing is to start.

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How LettsSafari helps

We believe rewilding should be something ordinary people can participate in, even if they don’t own acres of countryside. LettsSafari subscriptions help fund practical rewilding projects while also helping people discover simple ways to make more space for nature at home. Our model turns lots of small contributions into measurable action: as the community grows, subscriptions help fund trees, wildlife restoration and ultimately new areas of rewilded land. The return of Nosterfield’s glowworms shows what can happen when people give nature the right conditions - and then give it time. You don’t need a conservation degree. You don’t even necessarily need a garden shed full of glowworms. You just need to start making a little more room for the wild.

But if you look a little closer and they can be some of the most valuable green spaces in an urban area!

Take St Pancras and Islington Cemetery

In East Finchley, Saint Pancras and Islington Cemetery covers more than 60 hectares and is recognised as a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation.

It’s home to a mix of woodland, open grassland and wetland, as well as a section of the Strawberry Vale Brook. Some areas that are no longer actively used for burials have been allowed to develop into scrub and secondary woodland, creating more space for wildlife.

The woodland contains oak, hawthorn, willow, ash and sycamore, while the ground layer includes bluebells, cuckoo flowers, wild strawberries and other plants.

The cemetery also supports birds including green and great spotted woodpeckers, treecreepers, goldcrests and kestrels. Muntjac deer have also been recorded visiting the site!

Why does this matter?

London has limited green space, so every habitat counts.

Cemeteries can provide mature trees, undisturbed areas, grassland and vegetation within places where wildlife might otherwise have very little room.

They can also connect with other urban green spaces, helping create a wider network of habitats across the city.

And importantly, they don’t need to be completely rewilded to benefit wildlife.

Simply managing some areas differently, leaving parts of grass longer, protecting mature trees and creating habitats such as log piles or bird and bat boxes can make a difference. Islington Council has specifically identified its cemeteries as places where existing wildlife habitats can be protected and extended.

Looking at cemeteries differently

A cemetery can be a place of remembrance while also being a living habitat.

Next time you walk through one, look beyond the gravestones. Look at the trees, the plants growing between the paths, the birds in the canopy and what’s happening on the woodland floor.

There might be far more wildlife there than you expect.

Do you have a cemetery or churchyard near you that’s become a haven for wildlife?

Garden rewilding is a journey. We’re excited to share our journey with you through “The Nature Reserve Next Door: How to Turn Any Garden Into a Wildlife Sanctuary”.

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5.3 Cottage Garden Rewilding

Cottage gardens, the larger rural, village, or smallholding plots that characterise much of British and northern European rural housing, already have many structural advantages over urban gardens: established hedgerows, older and more diverse planted stock, fruit trees, vegetable areas, composting traditions, and often a richer underlying soil biology from decades of low-input management.

The rewilding opportunity in a cottage garden is therefore less about creating habitats from scratch and more about extending, connecting, and ecologically enriching what already exists.

High-Impact Features in a Cottage Garden

• Meadow orchard logic: native orchard trees (crab apple, wild cherry, pear) combined with flower-rich grass managed as meadow underneath is one of the most ecologically and aesthetically rich combinations available in the temperate garden

• Expanded hedge networks with layered climbers (ivy at the base for ground cover and late nectar; honeysuckle in the mid-layer for night-moth nectar; bramble at the edges for invertebrate and bird value)

• Multiple micro-wetlands: one main pond, one seasonal scrape (a shallow, seasonally flooded depression that dries in summer - supporting specialist invertebrates that cannot survive permanent water), and one wet swale or rain garden

• Deadwood zones rather than single log piles: a dead hedge line (branches stacked between posts in a ‘fedge’ structure) providing continuous linear habitat; a stag beetle log cluster (buried hardwood logs in a sunny position) if stag beetles are present in your county

• A south-facing stone bank or rubble pile for reptile habitat, particularly valuable in warmer southern counties for common lizard and slow worm

Hopefully Chapter five has given you some basic approaches to rewilding many smaller garden types. The real secret is not just rewilding your own garden as an isolated activity, but also to set an example and create the conditions for this vital movement to ripple throughout your neighbourhood.

Join us next week for “Chapter Six: The Seasonal Calendar and Ongoing Stewardship”

Get more LettsSafari updates and wildlife photos on X. And read the latest posts at the LettsSafari + website.

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What is the Sussex Bay rewilding project?

Sussex Bay is a collaborative nature recovery initiative aiming to improve approximately 100 miles of marine environment along the Sussex coastline. The waters are home to species including dolphins, porpoises, seahorses, rays, seals and kelp. Rather than concentrating on one species or habitat, the project takes a much broader approach. It considers how kelp forests, oyster reefs, saltmarshes, rivers, coastal habitats and inland landscapes interact with one another, and how the people living alongside them can become part of their recovery.

The project has already supported initiatives including oyster restoration, citizen-science research, marine wildlife monitoring and work to improve understanding of the local marine environment. But perhaps the most important idea behind Sussex Bay is connectivity.

A healthy kelp forest, for example, is more resilient if surrounding habitats are healthy too. Saltmarsh can help filter pollution. Oyster reefs can improve water quality. Rivers connect inland landscapes with the sea. Strengthening one part of the system can therefore help another. The same principle applies much closer to home.

Your garden isn’t an island

It is tempting to think of rewilding a garden as creating one particularly wildlife-friendly space.

Plant some wildflowers - Put up a bird box - Build a small pond - Leave part of the lawn unmown.

All of these are useful but their impact becomes much greater when we start thinking about how wildlife moves between spaces. Your garden might connect a nearby park with another garden:

• A hedge might provide a route for hedgehogs.

• A row of flowering plants could become one small feeding station in a much larger network used by bees and butterflies.

• A tree could provide shelter between two larger areas of habitat.

• Even a balcony covered with nectar-rich plants can become a small stepping stone for pollinating insects moving through a city.

The goal isn’t necessarily to create a complete ecosystem in your own garden.

It is to make your patch part of a bigger one.

Five ways to create a wildlife stepping stone at home

1. Plant for movement as well as appearance

Think about where wildlife might enter and leave your garden. Planting along fences, walls and boundaries can create continuous vegetation rather than isolated flower beds. Climbers, shrubs, native flowers and grasses can create useful cover and feeding opportunities. If several neighbouring gardens do something similar, the result can become a genuine wildlife corridor.

2. Make your boundaries permeable

Solid fences can be surprisingly difficult for wildlife. Hedgehogs in particular need to travel significant distances while searching for food and mates. Creating a small opening at ground level between neighbouring gardens can help transform several individual gardens into one much larger habitat network. Better still, coordinate with neighbours so several gardens become connected.

3. Create several layers of habitat

Natural habitats rarely consist of plants at one height. Try combining:

• ground-covering plants

• wildflowers and grasses

• shrubs

• climbers

• trees where space allows

Different species use different parts of this structure. A layered garden therefore offers more opportunities for feeding, nesting, shelter and movement.

4. Add water

One of the most effective things you can do for wildlife is provide water. It doesn’t have to be a large pond. A small container pond can support insects and other wildlife, while birds and mammals may use it for drinking. Make sure wildlife has an easy way in and out, using stones, gravel or gently sloping edges. Avoid introducing fish into wildlife ponds because they can eat aquatic insects and larvae.

5. Talk to your neighbours

This may be the most important lesson from Sussex Bay. Nature recovery becomes easier when people collaborate. Imagine ten neighbouring gardens each creating a small patch of pollinator-friendly planting, or several households making fence openings for hedgehogs, or a street deciding to plant native flowers around tree pits.

Individually, each action is small. Together, they create habitat.

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Think beyond the garden

Urban rewilding can extend far beyond private gardens. Small areas around:

• apartment blocks

• schools

• offices

• community centres

• churchyards

• car parks

• roadside verges

...can all become useful wildlife habitat.

Even spaces that appear insignificant to us may be valuable stepping stones for wildlife moving across increasingly fragmented landscapes.

How LettsSafari helps

LettsSafari was created around exactly this principle: many people taking practical action can collectively create meaningful space for nature. Through LettsSafari, members can support rewilding projects while also learning how to encourage wildlife closer to home. It turns rewilding from something that can feel distant or enormous into something people can participate in. You might start with a window box. Someone else might rewild part of their lawn. Another person might create a pond. Elsewhere, larger areas of land can be allowed to recover.

Connect enough of those actions and something important starts to happen: nature gets more room to move, and more room to return.

Here are six things to keep an eye out for this month.

Hedgehogs

Hedgehogs are still active in September, usually coming out after dark to look for food. They spend their nights searching for beetles, worms, caterpillars and other invertebrates.

If you’re lucky enough to spot one, give it plenty of space and watch from a distance.

Red admirals

You can still see butterflies on warmer September days, including red admirals. They’re often found around gardens, woodland edges and areas with late-flowering plants.

September can be a good month to keep an eye on flowers and see what’s still buzzing around them.

Fungi

As the weather becomes cooler and damper, fungi starts appearing across woodland floors, fallen logs and grassy areas.

There are thousands of species of fungi in the UK, so September is a great time to slow down and look closely. Remember to admire them rather than picking or eating anything you find.

Bats

Bats are still active in September, particularly around dusk when they head out to feed. They use echolocation to find and catch insects in the dark.

If you’re outside in the evening, look up and you might spot one flying overhead.

Goldfinches

Goldfinches are easy to recognise with their bright red faces and yellow wing markings. They’re often found feeding on seeds, particularly in areas with thistles and other seed-producing plants.

Keep an eye out for them in gardens, hedgerows and open areas.

Rosehips

It’s not just animals to look out for this month. Rosehips start to stand out in September as they develop on wild roses.

Their bright red-orange fruits provide food for birds and other wildlife, making them an important part of the autumn landscape.

Keep an eye out 👀

Next time you’re outside, take a little more time to look around. You might be surprised by what you find!

Ecologists forecast the work could increase biodiversity on the site by approximately 90%. The scale may be bigger than the average garden, business park or community space, but the principles behind it can be applied almost anywhere. And that is where smaller-scale rewilding gets interesting.

The lesson from Lancaster: make every piece of land work harder for nature

The Burrow Beck project demonstrates that we do not necessarily have to choose between land being useful for people and useful for wildlife. The same land can produce renewable electricity while also providing food, shelter and habitat for wildlife. That principle translates remarkably well to smaller spaces:

• A garden can still be somewhere to sit and entertain while containing native flowers.

• An office development can still have landscaped grounds while providing hedges, trees and nesting habitat.

• A balcony can still look attractive while supplying nectar for pollinators.

• A school field, verge, courtyard or communal garden can perform its original purpose while doing considerably more for biodiversity.

The goal isn’t necessarily to abandon a space to nature.

It is to increase the amount of nature that the space can support.

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How to rewild a small space: five practical ideas

1. Replace some grass with flowers

One of the simplest changes is reducing the amount of frequently mown grass. Instead, allow a section to grow longer or introduce native wildflowers. Longer grass and flowering plants can provide food and shelter for insects, which in turn support birds and other wildlife. You don’t have to turn the whole garden into a meadow. Start with a strip along a fence, a corner of the lawn or even a large container.

Think less mowing, more flowering.

2. Create layers of habitat

Burrow Beck combines several different habitat types rather than relying on one intervention and you can apply the same principle at home. Try combining:

• flowering plants

• shrubs

• a small native tree

• longer grass

• dead wood

• climbing plants

• a small pond or water source

• Different species need different things.

A garden containing several layers of vegetation is generally more valuable to wildlife than a garden consisting almost entirely of lawn - even a small space can contain surprising complexity.

3. Add water

Water can be one of the most valuable additions to a wildlife-friendly space. And you don’t need a large pond. A container pond made from a half barrel, washing-up bowl or other watertight container can provide habitat for insects and drinking water for birds and other wildlife. Allow plants to grow around the edges and provide an easy escape route for anything that falls in. Small interventions can create disproportionately useful habitats.

4. Connect your patch to the neighbourhood

Wildlife doesn’t recognise property boundaries. That means your garden becomes more useful when it connects with other green spaces nearby.

• Hedges rather than solid fences can create wildlife corridors.

• Small gaps beneath fences can help species such as hedgehogs travel between gardens.

• Climbing plants can provide vertical habitat where ground space is limited.

• Street trees, gardens, allotments, balconies and parks can collectively form a network.

One garden might be small but a neighbourhood full of wildlife-friendly gardens is something much bigger.

5. Manage less

Sometimes rewilding is as much about what you stop doing as what you add:

• Leave seed heads through winter.

• Allow leaves to gather beneath shrubs.

• Keep some dead wood.

• Avoid unnecessary pesticides.

• Let some grass grow longer.

• Allow a few plants to seed naturally.

A perfectly tidy garden often removes exactly the materials that insects, birds and other animals need. Giving nature slightly more freedom can have a surprisingly large effect.

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Start with the lowest-diversity part of your space

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Burrow Beck is where the project started. The council describes the original agricultural land as species-poor. That gives us another useful rewilding rule: don’t necessarily start with the wildest part of your garden. Start with the least wild.

Look around your space:

• Is there a bare fence?

• A permanently short lawn?

• A paved corner?

• An unused planter?

• A sterile area of gravel?

• A wall with nothing growing against it?

• These are opportunities.

You are looking for places where a relatively small intervention could create a large ecological improvement.

Where LettsSafari fits in

At LettsSafari, we believe rewilding should be something people can participate in rather than simply something they read about. You don’t need to own a large estate nor do you need to become a conservation expert.

And you don’t need to transform your entire garden overnight.

LettsSafari helps people take part in nature recovery in two complementary ways. First, our subscriptions help support our practical smaller-scale rewilding projects in the UK. Second, we help our community discover straightforward ways to make their own gardens, balconies and neighbourhood spaces more welcoming to wildlife.

The two ideas reinforce each other.

Your small-space rewilding checklist

If you want to begin this week, try just one of these:

• Leave a section of grass unmown

• Sow native wildflowers

• Plant a wildlife-friendly shrub

• Add a container pond

• Create a gap for hedgehogs

• Leave some fallen leaves beneath shrubs

• Put away pesticides

• Add a climbing plant to a bare wall or fence

• Leave seed heads standing over winter

Don’t worry about doing everything.

Choose one patch. Make it slightly wilder. Then see what turns up.

Created in 2006, the garden was developed with Tate Modern and Bankside Open Spaces Trust (BOST) to create a shared green space for local residents. It includes flower beds, fruit trees, herbs, a wildlife pond and a labyrinth, providing space for both people and wildlife.

What makes the garden interesting is how much it fits into such a small urban space. In an area dominated by buildings, tourists and busy streets, it provides a quieter place where people can garden, volunteer and spend time outdoors.

The garden is looked after by local volunteers, with activities including planting, gardening and wildlife projects. It shows how even small community-led spaces can contribute to biodiversity and make cities feel a little greener.

It’s also a good reminder that urban nature doesn’t always have to mean a large park. Sometimes, a small patch of land can create a valuable space for wildlife and bring a community together.

📍 Tate Modern Community Garden, Bankside, London

Sayer’s Old Meadow in North Norfolk, a former arable field has transformed into a flourishing wildflower meadow. More than 150 plant species have now been recorded on the site, which was previously used for intensive agriculture. The meadow also supports butterflies, hoverflies and birds. Rather than being replanted with a commercial wildflower seed mix, the land was largely allowed to regenerate naturally.

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The approach has been surprisingly straightforward: allow the vegetation to grow, cut the meadow for hay annually and remove the cuttings. Research from University College London found that plant diversity increased steadily during the study period. The average number of species recorded in individual survey plots roughly doubled between 2011 and 2022, with species including yellow rattle and southern marsh orchid appearing naturally.

It is an impressive ecological success story. But what can the rest of us learn from it?

You don’t need a field in Norfolk to experiment with the idea.

1. Stop mowing part of your lawn

Choose a section of lawn and simply allow the grass to grow. It doesn’t need to be the entire garden. A strip along a fence, an area beneath a tree or even a small corner can provide additional habitat. Watch what happens before deciding whether you need to plant anything. Existing plants may flower. New species may arrive. Longer grass can provide shelter for insects and other wildlife. The important thing is to give the space time.

2. Remove the cuttings

One of the important lessons from Sayer’s Old Meadow is the role of traditional hay management. At the Norfolk site, the meadow is cut and the hay removed. Why does this matter? Removing cut vegetation gradually removes nutrients from the soil. Extremely fertile soil tends to favour vigorous grasses and a relatively small number of dominant plants. Lower nutrient levels can create opportunities for a wider variety of meadow species. So if you’re trying to establish a meadow area at home, don’t simply leave cut grass lying where it falls.

3. Don’t judge your experiment after one summer

Rewilding operates on nature’s timetable rather than ours. Sayer’s Meadow developed over many years. The UCL research followed vegetation changes from 2011 to 2022 and found species richness continuing to increase over that period. Your garden isn’t likely to produce thousands of orchids next spring. Instead, look for incremental changes:

• Are more plants flowering?

• Are you seeing more bees or butterflies?

• Are birds spending more time in the garden?

• Are different plants beginning to appear?

• Are there more insects among the longer vegetation?

• Treat the garden as an experiment rather than a finished landscaping project.

4. Let plants arrive before deciding what is missing

Wildflower seed mixes can be useful, particularly where natural regeneration is unlikely. But don’t automatically assume you need one. Seeds can arrive through wind, birds, mammals and other natural processes. Researchers studying Sayer’s Meadow believe animals such as deer may even have helped some plants colonise the site. In a garden, your equivalent seed distributors might be birds, squirrels - or simply the wind. Give natural regeneration a chance first then intervene selectively if the results need a helping hand.

5. Create different levels of wildness

Rewilding doesn’t have to mean abandoning an entire garden. Try creating a patchwork. You might have:

A frequently used area - keep paths, seating areas and spaces used by children or pets relatively managed.

A lightly managed area - mow this less frequently and allow flowers such as clover and daisies to bloom.

A wild area - allow grasses and other vegetation to grow for much longer before cutting.

This creates different habitats within even a small space. It also makes rewilding much easier to live with.

6. Observe before you interfere

Perhaps the most interesting habit to borrow from the Norfolk experiment is simply watching what happens. Take photographs of your wild patch once a month. Make a note of plants you recognise. Record butterflies, bees and birds.

You’ll gradually build a picture of how your small ecosystem is changing. You could even use citizen-science apps to identify species and contribute observations to biodiversity records. Suddenly, the neglected corner of the garden isn’t neglected at all. It’s a tiny ecological experiment.

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Small spaces add up

Britain has lost the overwhelming majority of its species-rich traditional meadows over the past century. The remaining fragments are therefore enormously important for plants, pollinators and other wildlife. We can’t recreate those landscapes overnight.

But we can create more places where nature has room to operate.

Gardens.

Balconies.

Community spaces.

School grounds.

Roadside verges.

Business premises.

Even a few square metres can become another stepping stone connecting wildlife through an increasingly fragmented landscape.

That’s where the thinking behind LettsSafari comes in.

LettsSafari is built around the idea that rewilding shouldn’t be something only governments, conservation organisations or large landowners can participate in.

You can make changes in your own space while also supporting wider small-scale rewilding projects.

It turns rewilding from something you simply read about into something you can actually participate in.

London is experiencing one of it’s driest periods in decades. After months of very low rainfall and repeated heatwaves, drought has been officially declared across the capital, while water restrictions are already in place for Thames Water customers.

For those of us living in the city, drought can sometimes feel like something that mainly affects farmers, reservoirs and the countryside. But London’s wildlife and green spaces are feeling the effects too. Rivers and ponds are under pressure, plants are struggling in dry soils and animals are having to find water and food in increasingly difficult conditions.

There are some simple things we can all do to help.

Use less water

The most obvious place to start is at home. Small changes to everyday water use can add up when they’re made across a whole city.

During a drought, this is particularly important when it comes to gardens and plants. If you have outdoor space, avoid unnecessary watering and follow any local water restrictions. Using a watering can rather than a hosepipe can also help you control how much water you’re using.

It’s also worth thinking about where your water comes from. Rainwater can be collected and reused for plants when conditions allow, rather than letting it disappear straight down the drain. London receives a huge amount of rainfall over the course of a year, so finding ways to keep and reuse that water can make a difference.

Don’t worry about keeping everything green

A dry lawn isn’t necessarily a problem.

During periods of drought, it’s natural for grass and some plants to turn brown. There’s no need to try to keep every patch of grass looking perfectly green.

Allowing some areas to grow naturally can actually benefit wildlife. Longer grass and wild plants provide food and shelter for insects, while reducing the need for watering and mowing.

Instead of trying to maintain a perfect lawn, we can give parts of our gardens and local green spaces the opportunity to become more wildlife-friendly.

Make space for wildlife

Drought can make it harder for wildlife to find water, particularly in built-up areas.

If you have a garden, balcony or other outdoor space, consider planting drought-tolerant, pollinator-friendly plants. London City Hall recommends planting flowers that provide food for bees and other pollinators, while also highlighting the importance of drought-resistant gardening.

Even a small space can help. London has almost a quarter of its land area covered by gardens, meaning individual gardens can collectively create important networks of habitat across the city.

Think about how rain moves through the city

It might seem strange to think about rain during a drought, but how we manage rainfall is becoming increasingly important.

A lot of London’s urban landscape is covered by paving, concrete and other impermeable surfaces. When it does rain, water can quickly run into drains rather than soaking into the ground.

Removing a small section of paving, planting a garden or creating a rain garden can help water soak into the soil instead. These changes can support wildlife, reduce surface water flooding and help retain more water within the environment.

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Look after your local green spaces

You don’t need a garden to help.

Community gardens, parks, nature reserves and local wildlife projects all rely on people getting involved. Volunteering, joining a local planting project or simply helping to look after a shared green space can make a difference.

London already has thousands of people volunteering to manage habitats, record wildlife and support local nature projects.

Drought is a reminder that our green spaces need looking after just as much as we do. And when those spaces are cared for by the communities around them, they can become more resilient to the challenges of a changing climate.

Small changes add up

There’s no single thing that will solve London’s water problems, and individual action shouldn’t take the place of the bigger changes needed from water companies and policymakers.

But there are things we can do in our own homes and neighbourhoods.

Use less water. Let some areas grow. Plant for wildlife. Collect rainwater where appropriate. Support your local green spaces.

London is already a surprisingly green city, and its gardens, parks, rivers and smaller pockets of nature are all connected. Looking after them means looking after the wildlife that depends on them, too!

The drought is a difficult reminder of how much we rely on water. It also gives us an opportunity to think differently about how we use it and how we create greener, more resilient places to live.

Sometimes helping nature starts with simply making a little more space for it!

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As LettsSafari continues to grow, we wanted the website to do more than simply tell people what we do. It’s a place to share our rewilding work, introduce the wildlife that benefits from these spaces and give people a better understanding of why restoring nature matters.

The new design brings everything together in one place, from our rewilding projects and wildlife to our latest news and resources. We’ve also made it easier to explore the different ways you can learn about, support and connect with nature.

Whether you’re new to LettsSafari or have been following us for a while, we’d love for you to have a look around!

As we continues to grow, so will the website.

You can find out more about our approach to rewilding, explore our work and keep up with what’s happening across our sites.

Visit the new LettsSafari website and let us know what you think.

We’ll continue sharing more here on our Substack about rewilding, wildlife, urban nature and the people and communities helping to create a better future for nature so subscribe to us today!

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A recent Guardian article highlighted the idea of creating mounds in gardens using existing soil, rubble, branches and organic material, drawing inspiration from our good friends at Knepp in West Sussex. At Knepp, material that could have been removed as waste was instead reused to form an undulating dry garden, providing planting opportunities and habitat for insects.

It’s a simple idea with an important principle behind it: the more varied the habitat, the more opportunities you can create for nature.

And it’s something you can try in even a relatively small urban garden.

Why a Flat Garden Isn’t Always Best for Wildlife

Most conventional gardens are designed around flat lawns, straight borders and clearly defined spaces.

Wild landscapes rarely look like that - they contain slopes, banks, fallen branches, bare ground, sheltered hollows, exposed sunny areas and countless small variations in height, moisture and temperature.

These variations create microhabitats - small areas offering slightly different conditions for plants, insects and other wildlife. Introducing even a small mound can therefore increase the variety within your garden.

How to Create a Wildlife-Friendly Garden Mound

You don’t need to undertake major landscaping. Start with materials you already have.

1. Save surplus soil

If you’re digging a pond, installing a path or creating new planting areas, don’t automatically dispose of the soil. Consider using it elsewhere in the garden to create gentle mounds or raised planting areas. Rather than sending excavated soil away in a skip, it can become part of the garden itself.

2. Add logs and branches

Dead wood is one of the most useful materials in a wildlife garden. Instead of cutting branches into small pieces and removing them, place some underneath your mound. As the wood gradually decomposes, it helps create a richer structure beneath the soil.

This approach is similar to “hugelkultur“, a long-established gardening technique in which mounds are created using decaying wood, branches and other organic material covered with soil.

3. Use turf rather than throwing it away

If you’re removing sections of lawn, turn the turf upside down and incorporate it into your mound. The grass will break down over time and return organic material to the soil. It is another example of a useful rule for wildlife gardening:

Before taking something out of your garden, ask whether nature could use it somewhere else.

4. Create different aspects

Even a mound less than a metre high can create different conditions. One side might receive full sun. Another could remain cooler and shaded. The top may drain quickly while the bottom retains more moisture. These differences give you opportunities to grow a wider mixture of plants.

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Plant Your Mound for Wildlife

Once your mound is established, avoid treating it as another conventional flower bed. Think about layers.

You could combine:

• ground-cover plants

• grasses

• wildflowers

• flowering perennials

• small shrubs

• herbs

• climbing or trailing plants

Aim to provide different heights, shapes and flowering periods. Use repetition alongside different heights, colours and textures when planting a mound. From a wildlife perspective, variety can also extend the amount of time your garden provides useful food and shelter.

Don’t Make Everything Too Tidy

A wildlife-friendly mound doesn’t need to look abandoned but it doesn’t need to look immaculate either. Allow some leaves to remain, leave occasional stems standing, keep pieces of exposed wood or let plants seed naturally in places.

A small amount of disorder can provide valuable hiding places and overwintering habitat. The aim isn’t to stop gardening. It is to garden with wildlife in mind.

Connect Your Mound to Other Mini Habitats

The real opportunity comes when your mound becomes part of a larger network. Alongside it, consider adding:

A small pond or water container: Even a tiny source of water can add another type of habitat.

A log pile: Stack branches or pieces of untreated timber somewhere sheltered.

A patch of longer grass: Rather than mowing everything at the same height, allow one area to grow.

Pollinator-friendly planting: Choose plants that provide pollen and nectar through as much of the year as possible.

Dense shrubs: Shrubs can provide shelter and potential nesting habitat while creating another layer of vegetation.

You don’t need all of them. Adding one new habitat at a time gradually makes your garden more varied.

Rewilding Is About Variety, Not Size

This is perhaps the most useful lesson from the story.

The inspiration may come from Knepp - one of Britain’s best-known rewilding projects - but the same principle can be applied in a long, narrow urban garden. You don’t have to recreate a giant nature reserve, uou simply create more opportunities for nature within the space you already have.

Where LettsSafari Fits In

LettsSafari is built around the idea that people shouldn’t need to own large areas of countryside to participate in rewilding. You can start where you are.

Through LettsSafari, subscribers can learn practical ways to encourage nature back into gardens, balconies and other small spaces while also contributing to wider rewilding activity.

That creates two complementary forms of action:

Rewild at home.
Make small changes that create more space for wildlife around you.

Support rewilding elsewhere.
Help fund larger-scale nature restoration beyond your own garden.

The goal isn’t to turn every garden into wilderness overnight.

It’s to help thousands of people make one achievable change — and then another.

Five Small Rewilding Actions to Try This Weekend

If creating a mound sounds interesting, start small.

1. Leave one pile of logs or branches somewhere sheltered.

2. Allow one patch of grass to grow longer.

3. Turn an unused container into a miniature wildlife pond.

4. Create a small mound from spare soil, turf or organic material.

5. Plant one additional wildlife-friendly plant.

The best small-scale rewilding projects often begin with something surprisingly simple. Sometimes even a pile of earth can become habitat.

Garden rewilding is a journey. We’re excited to share our journey with you through “The Nature Reserve Next Door: How to Turn Any Garden Into a Wildlife Sanctuary”.

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5.2 Medium Urban Garden Build

A medium urban garden of 120–300+ m² offers enough space to implement the LettsSafari three-habitat mosaic as a literal, spatially distinct structure: three interlocking zones of grassland, scrub, and trees, connected by a water thread. The recommended approach is to split the rewilded area (roughly one-third or more of the total garden area) into roughly equal grassland, scrub, and tree-associated zones.

Key Upgrades Versus a Small Garden

• A two-meadow system: one ‘spring meadow’ that flowers early and is then managed (cut and arisings removed) in late summer; one ‘summer meadow’ patch left long until the autumn cut, providing overwintering habitat for butterfly larvae in the grass tussocks

• A proper wet edge: a wildlife pond of at least 3 m in the longest dimension, feeding into an actual bog garden strip, which in turn spills into a damp grass margin planted with ragged robin, marsh marigold, and water mint

• A native mixed hedge of around five species, with climbers (ivy and honeysuckle) growing through it and a rough base of leaf litter and bramble below

• Hedgehog highway connection: if appropriate and with the support of neighbours, a 13 cm × 13 cm gap at the base of your fence panels allows hedgehogs to follow established nightly routes through the garden network

• At least two or three standard or semi-standard native trees providing canopy structure - a field maple or crab apple in a sunny position; an alder or willow in any damp zone

Living in, or having access to a medium sized urban garden is a real privilege, and a wonderful opportunity to extend your traditional garden methods with your own mini, rewilded nature reserve. One that nature and wildlife will constantly thank you for.

Join us next week for “Chapter 5.3 Cottage Garden Rewilding”

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Get more LettsSafari updates and wildlife photos on X. And read the latest posts at the LettsSafari + website.

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In late July 2026, fire swept across more than 112 hectares of Dunwich Heath on the Suffolk coast, damaging one of Britain’s most important areas of lowland heath.

The reserve provides habitat for wildlife including nightjars, Dartford warblers, adders and specialist invertebrates. Conservationists have warned that some species have lost crucial habitat and that the effects on less mobile wildlife may be particularly severe.

The fire has also prompted a wider conversation about how we manage land as Britain’s summers become hotter and drier.

And one of the answers may lie in creating more varied, nature-rich landscapes.

How can rewilding reduce wildfire risk?

Rewilding doesn’t mean simply abandoning land.

At Dunwich Heath, the National Trust and RSPB already actively manage vegetation, remove material, maintain firebreaks and encourage different ages of heather. According to the National Trust, having vegetation of different ages can also help retain more moisture in the ground.

But conservationists are also looking at how nature itself can help make larger landscapes more resilient.

Possible approaches include:

• restoring wetlands that can create natural breaks in dry landscapes;

• using grazing animals to reduce accumulated dry vegetation;

• maintaining ponds and wetter areas;

• creating a mixture of woodland, scrub, grassland and open habitat;

• connecting habitats so wildlife has more places to move when conditions change.

At Dunwich, neighbouring wetlands helped limit the fire’s spread in some areas. Conservationists interviewed after the fire also pointed to beavers, winter grazing and more varied habitat mosaics as potential tools for making suitable landscapes more resilient.

The principle is bigger than wildfire.

Natural England argues that larger, better-connected and healthier natural areas give wildlife a better chance of surviving periods of extreme weather. The government’s Land Use Framework also identifies restoring wetlands and other nature-based solutions as part of improving resilience to climate impacts, including wildfire.

What does this have to do with your garden?

Quite a lot.

You probably aren’t going to introduce a herd of grazing animals or a family of beavers to your back garden.

But the underlying idea scales down surprisingly well: diversity creates resilience.

A garden made up almost entirely of paving and a closely cut lawn provides relatively few habitats. Introduce trees, shrubs, longer grass, flowers, water, dead wood and areas of shade and suddenly you have a much richer ecosystem. Different species can find food, shelter and cooler conditions in different places. And when thousands of gardens do this together, individual pockets of habitat begin to form something much more interesting: a network of urban nature.

Here are five ways to start.

1. Add water

Water is one of the quickest ways to increase the variety of wildlife visiting a garden. A small wildlife pond, sunken container or other safe source of water can provide drinking and bathing opportunities while creating habitat for insects and amphibians. Make sure wildlife has an easy way in and out, and avoid introducing fish if your goal is a wildlife-focused pond. The larger landscape principle is similar: wetlands provide habitat while also helping landscapes cope with environmental extremes.

2. Create different layers of vegetation

Think less about individual plants and more about habitat structure. Try combining:

• trees

• shrubs

• climbing plants

• flowers

• longer grasses

• ground-level vegetation

These different layers provide feeding, nesting and shelter opportunities for different species. Even a small garden can contain surprising structural diversity.

A balcony can do it too: tall grasses, flowering containers and climbing plants create several miniature layers of habitat in only a few square metres.

3. Leave some areas less tidy

Wildlife rarely shares our enthusiasm for immaculate gardens. A pile of leaves beneath a hedge, some dead stems left over winter or a small stack of logs can provide habitat for insects and other creatures. You don’t need to let the whole garden go wild. Choose a corner.

That distinction is important. Rewilding doesn’t have to mean doing nothing.

Sometimes helping nature means intervening less. Sometimes it means actively creating the conditions in which nature can thrive. The conservation work at Dunwich itself demonstrates this balance: vegetation is cut, scrub managed and firebreaks maintained specifically to protect its distinctive heathland ecosystem.

4. Give your lawn some variety

You don’t have to choose between a bowling green and an impenetrable jungle. Try mowing different areas at different heights. Keep some shorter grass where you want to sit or walk, but allow other sections to grow. Add flowering plants suited to your soil and local conditions. You begin creating a mosaic of habitats - the small-scale equivalent of the varied landscapes conservationists are trying to encourage more widely.

5. Connect your patch with the world outside

Perhaps the most important principle of small-scale rewilding is connection. Your garden doesn’t exist in isolation. Birds fly between gardens. Bees travel between flowers. Insects, amphibians and small mammals move through vegetation, hedges and gaps between properties. So ask:

Can wildlife get into my space?

Is there food when it arrives?

Is there somewhere to shelter?

Can it move onwards to another habitat?

A hedge instead of a solid fence, climbing plants against boundaries or a small gap beneath a fence can make your patch part of a much larger ecological network.

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Small actions become bigger ecosystems

The lesson from Dunwich isn’t that planting a pond in your garden will stop wildfires. The more useful lesson is that nature becomes more resilient when landscapes contain variety, water, connectivity and healthy habitat. That principle works at many different scales.

A major nature reserve can create wetlands, grazing systems and habitat mosaics. A community might rewild a park, roadside verge or shared green. And an individual household can turn a lawn, balcony, courtyard or garden into another stepping stone for wildlife.

That’s where LettsSafari comes in.

LettsSafari is built around the idea that you don’t need to own a huge piece of countryside to participate in rewilding. You can make your own space wilder while helping support wider rewilding activity. Taken together, those individual actions can help create something much bigger: a growing network of places where nature has more room to thrive.

Because the future of rewilding isn’t only about spectacular projects in remote landscapes.

It can start outside your back door.