Attracting Hedgehogs into a Suburban Garden

Why Your Garden Matters More Than You Think

Hedgehogs have been in decline for decades, and the reasons are largely about habitat: tidy fences, sprayed lawns, paved front gardens and neatly trimmed borders leave them with nowhere to forage and no safe route between feeding grounds. The surprising part is that suburban gardens have become one of their most important strongholds. A single garden is too small, but a street of ordinary gardens joined together can hold a surprising number of hedgehogs.

So the aim is simple: make your patch easy to enter, safe to travel through, and rich enough in natural food to be worth the visit. None of it requires a major redesign, and most of it saves you work rather than creating it.

Cut a Hedgehog Highway Through the Fence

A hedgehog roams roughly a mile or more in a night looking for beetles, slugs, caterpillars and earthworms. A solid fence line turns a whole street into a series of sealed boxes, so the most valuable thing you can do is open the way through.

• Cut a gap 13 centimetres square at the base of each fence panel — roughly the size of a CD case. Any larger and you may let in a determined rabbit or a cat; any smaller and a well-fed hedgehog will not fit.
• Work with the gravel board. Lifting or notching the bottom board is often easier than cutting the panel itself, and it keeps the fence structurally sound.
• Check the neighbours are happy first. A gap in a boundary fence is a shared decision, and one conversation is usually all it takes — most people are delighted once they know why.
• If you cannot cut the fence, dig a shallow tunnel underneath, or plant a hedge instead when the fence next needs replacing.

Mark your gap on a simple map of the street if you want to encourage others to do the same. Gaps that line up with next door's borders give hedgehogs a genuine corridor rather than a dead end.

Leave a Wild Corner to Do the Work

Hedgehogs need cover by day and nesting material for winter, and both come free if you stop tidying one corner of the garden.

• A log pile in a damp, shady spot is the single best hedgehog feature you can build. Stack logs loosely, add a few handfuls of leaves, and leave it undisturbed.
• A leaf pile left in place over winter becomes a nesting site and a nursery for the beetles and grubs that make up most of a hedgehog's diet.
• Long grass and a patch of nettles provide insect food and daytime shelter. A metre or two is enough.
• A compost heap is a favourite hibernation spot, so turn it gently in spring and autumn and check before you dig in.

Leave the pile alone between November and March if you can. Disturbing a hibernating hedgehog can be fatal, as waking it burns fat reserves it cannot easily replace.

Offer Shallow Water and Sensible Food

Hedgehogs get thirsty, particularly in hot spells and during the autumn build-up, and a steep-sided pond or slippery bowl is a genuine hazard.

• Put out a shallow dish — a plant saucer with a few pebbles in it works well — and refresh it daily. Provide an escape ramp in any pond, and keep the water level topped up.
• Supplementary food helps, especially in dry weather when worms stay deep in the soil. Meat-based cat or dog food in jelly, or kitten biscuits, are the best choices.
• Never put out milk or bread. Hedgehogs are lactose intolerant and bread has no useful nutrition.
• Go easy on mealworms. They are fine as an occasional treat, but a diet based on them can cause serious calcium problems.

If cats are a nuisance, use a feeding station made from an upside-down plastic storage box with a 13 centimetre entrance cut in one side. It keeps the food dry and lets hedgehogs eat in peace.

Clear the Hazards Before You Welcome Them

Once hedgehogs are visiting, a few ordinary gardening habits become dangerous.

• Slug pellets are lethal to hedgehogs, directly and through poisoned slugs. It is far better to encourage the hedgehog to do the job for you.
• Strimmers and mowers cause terrible injuries. Check long grass by hand before cutting, and never strim a leaf pile.
• Bonfires look like a perfect nest. Move the pile to clear ground on the day you light it, or rebuild it just before burning.
• Netting, fruit cages and garden twine tangle legs and spines. Keep netting at least 30 centimetres off the ground.
• Steep-sided drains, water butts and cattle grids are traps. Cover them or add a rough ramp.

How to Tell They Have Moved In

Hedgehogs are secretive, but they leave plenty of signs. Listen for loud huffing and snuffling after dark, especially in spring when males chase each other in circles. Look for droppings: dark, roughly cylindrical and full of beetle wing cases, quite different from a cat's. A footprint tunnel made from a length of drainpipe with paper and a little cooking oil inside will confirm who is visiting and how often.

One caution worth remembering: a hedgehog out in daylight is usually in trouble, particularly a small one. Contact a local wildlife rescue for advice rather than trying to feed it yourself. And if you see a hedgehog in late autumn that looks small — under about 600 grams — it may need help to reach hibernation weight.

Feeding, watering and leaving a gap in the fence costs you almost nothing. Between them, they can turn a single suburban garden into part of a network that keeps hedgehogs moving safely through your neighbourhood for years to come.