Hedgehogs, hedgepigs, or urchins? Attracting them to your garden

The short sighted scutlle of a snuffing hedgehog is a sight that brings delight because it is now so rare.

The plight of the hedgehog is one we should all embrace as, in the garden, they are our friends - eating snails and slugs faster than you can collect them or tip them over the wall and wait for them to return (as snails have a homing sense over a distance of about 10 metres). Nature’s mollusc controllers will also happily much through enough food to fill their stomachs twice every night - although they are fairly indescriminate in their diet of which 75% is invertebrates of various kinds.

So how do we encourage nature’s alternative to slug pellets into our biodiverse gardens? We can design our gardens to encourage our native wildlife! First if you have a fence make sure there is a hole for hedgehogs to squeeze through between your garden and the next (and don’t worry about cats as if they’re about they will climb over the fence anyway).

Access to water is also good (as long as they can clamber out if they fall in) and you could try a log pile or hedgehog box (but these need to be somewhere peaceful to encourage the hedgehogs to settle in for the day).

But the best thing you can do for hedgehogs? Well its in the name! Plant hedges as your boundaries (and encourage your neighbours to do the same) so that your resident ‘hogs can freely wander collecting slugs and snails. They can wander up to a mile a night so lots of hedges are undoubtedly a good thing. If you make these of native species as well (hawthorn, hazel, field maple, dog rose, holly) you will be benefitting all the wildlife that lives in, visits, or passes through your garden as well.

Finally, just don’t use slug pellets as these will poison the hedgehogs that eat the infected slugs and snails. If you feel you need to use slug pellets then you either have the wrong plants in your garden or you need to switch to beer traps or you should ring the tastiest of your plants with coffee grounds or crushed eggshells…of course the easiest thing is to go and collect the ravenous molluscs in a bucket at dusk and dispose of them 10 metres away from your garden!