section heading hidden

Why Your Garden Matters More Than You Think

Hedgehogs have been part of British gardens for centuries, but their numbers have fallen dramatically since the 1950s. The reasons are familiar: lost hedgerows, tidier gardens, busier roads and fewer insects. The encouraging news is that a single well-managed plot can genuinely help, and a whole street of them can help even more.

A hedgehog needs three things from your garden: food, water, and somewhere safe to sleep. Most gardens accidentally provide plenty of the first and none of the third. If you get the shelter right, the rest tends to follow, because hedgehogs are creatures of habit and will return night after night to a spot that feels secure.

Open Up a Hedgehog Highway

An adult hedgehog can travel a kilometre or more in a single night looking for food and mates. A solid fence line stops that journey dead, and stranded populations become isolated and vulnerable. The simplest fix is a gap at ground level.

• Cut or leave a hole roughly 13cm square — about the size of a CD case — at the base of fences and walls. It is wide enough for a foraging hedgehog but too small for most cats and dogs.
• If you have gravel boards along a fence bottom, lift one and replace it with a shorter section, or simply dig a shallow channel beneath it.
• Talk to your neighbours. One gap per boundary, ideally lined up with theirs, turns a row of gardens into a proper corridor.
• Where a hedge replaces a fence, that's ideal. If you are planting, choose native species such as hawthorn, beech or blackthorn, which also feed insects.
• Keep gates and side returns accessible by clipping a small corner off the bottom rather than lifting the whole thing.

Do this in autumn or early spring, well away from any nesting season, and check with neighbours before cutting anything that isn't yours.

Sheltered Corners and Somewhere to Sleep

Hedgehogs are nocturnal wanderers that need a dry, quiet place to spend the day and somewhere deeper to hibernate from roughly November to March. A pristine garden with short grass and bare borders offers neither.

• Build a log pile in a corner that gets sun for part of the day. Stack logs loosely, with the ends facing out, and leave it undisturbed for years.
• Leave a heap of leaves in a quiet spot over winter. Leaf litter is warm, damp and full of the insects hedgehogs eat.
• Buy or make a hedgehog house: a wooden box with a tunnel entrance, a solid floor and a waterproof roof. Site it against a wall or fence, out of prevailing wind, and cover the top with leaves or a piece of roofing felt.
• Let a patch of grass grow long along a border. It shelters insects and gives hedgehogs cover to move between feeding areas.
• Compost heaps are popular nesting sites. Fork them gently, never in one deep thrust, and check the edges before turning.

Avoid the temptation to tidy everything in autumn. Leaving seed heads, fallen leaves and dead stems in place is one of the kindest things you can do for wildlife.

Water, Food and What to Avoid

Water is the most overlooked need. A shallow dish just two or three centimetres deep, refreshed daily, will be used constantly. Put a few pebbles or a small ramp inside so anything that falls in can climb out.

If you want to feed hedgehogs, keep it simple and meaty. Good options include:

• Meaty cat or dog food, either tinned or in jelly, served at dusk in a shallow dish.
• Specialist hedgehog food, available from garden centres and wildlife suppliers.
• Fresh water alongside, every single night during warm spells.

What to avoid is just as important. Bread and milk cause dehydration and diarrhoea and should never be offered. Mealworms are fine as an occasional treat but not as a staple — a diet heavy in them can lead to serious bone problems. Sugary, salty and fatty scraps are all harmful, and uneaten food should be cleared away each morning so it doesn't attract rats.

Small Changes That Save Lives

Many garden features are quietly dangerous, and the fixes are quick.

• Ponds: add a gently sloping edge or a piece of ramp made from stone or wood so hedgehogs can climb out. They swim well but drown when they can't find a way up.
• Netting: raise fruit netting and pea netting at least 30cm off the ground so hedgehogs don't become tangled.
• Slug pellets: stop using them. Hedgehogs eat slugs, and poisoned slugs poison hedgehogs. Encourage birds, frogs and ground beetles instead.
• Strimmers and mowers: check long grass by hand before cutting, especially in early summer when hoglets are about.
• Bonfires: rebuild the pile on the day you intend to light it, and check underneath first. A pile left standing for days is a magnet for a sleeping hedgehog.
• Drains and steep-sided holes: cover them or provide an escape route.

Watching Without Interfering

Signs that hedgehogs are visiting include dark, shiny droppings full of insect fragments, snuffling noises after dusk, and neat tunnels through long grass. A trail camera placed low to the ground will confirm it without disturbing anything.

Resist the urge to handle them. A healthy hedgehog seen at night is simply going about its business, and a nesting female will abandon a nest if it is disturbed too often. Do intervene if you see one out in bright daylight, if it looks unsteady, or if it is clearly injured — contact a local wildlife rescue for advice. In late autumn, a small hedgehog out in the day is often too underweight to hibernate and needs help quickly.

Above all, be patient. Build the shelter, open the gaps, put out water, and let the garden be a little wilder than usual. Hedgehogs find these places eventually, and once they do, they tend to stay.