Dead wood is wonderful for wildlife. A wealth of invertebrates, reptiles, amphibians and even smaller mammals loves to make its home here. But the trend towards tidy gardens means many gardens are dead wood deserts.
Making log pile walls and dead hedges is a great way to help hedgehogs and other wildlife. They will provide food and shelter for beetles and other insects, key to the wild hedgehog diet. Frogs, toads and other small creatures will also find homes in the crevices and they are a great foraging place for birds.
How to build a log pile wall
Log pile walls are simple to build. You can use any dead wood already in your garden, scour free sites for wood or purchase firewood logs. We used a mini garden chainsaw to cut our logs from longer pieces of wood. It’s a lot less effort than using a hand saw!
Pile the logs up and consider adding pipes into the mix, to provide additional homes for frogs and toads. You can often pick these up from salvage sites or scour freecycle or other free sites. You can even plant the top and crevices of your log wall with wildflowers.
Building a dead hedge
Dead hedges are another great way to add dead wood wildlife habitats to your garden. Just like the name suggests, they are more like a traditional fence but made with off cuts – long thin prunings of hedges or trees. You can purchase stakes or, for a more natural look, create your own natural wooden stakes from pieces of wood you’ve found or trimmed. You then weave in any long sticks and prunings. Like log piles, dead hedges create a micro environment for invertebrates. A wide dead hedge could even provide a hibernation spot for a hedgehog.
We have created a mix of native hedgerow, log pile walls and dead hedges around the edge of our wildflower meadow. We are already seeing lots of birds foraging around for insects that have moved in as soon as they were built.
Maintaining your log piles and dead hedges
There isn’t a huge amount of management required but simply add more logs to your log piles over time as they start to rot down. You can fill out your dead hedges over the year with prunings from any living hedges and trees.
Learning about wildlife
If you’d like to learn more about helping wildlife in your garden, I run online courses for all levels of knowledge and experience.
About me
I am busy creating a wildlife haven in an acre of the Yorkshire Wolds. My aim is to create as much wild habitat as possible whilst still creating a beautiful space for humans to enjoy.
If you’ve found the information on my website useful, I would be so grateful if you would take a look at the many ways to support my work.
You might also like my handmade wildlife jewellery that is inspired by the plants and creatures in my wildlife haven. I also offer the chance to come and visit me for courses and open days.
Little Silver Hedgehog 