Gardens, Is your garden good for amphibians, snakes,and lizards.?

These groups of animals need all the friends that they can get if they are to survive the perils and challenges of modern life.Gardens can be safe refuges for these animals and made even better with a little fine tuning of the gardeners practice.

• Make room for a compost heap which will allow you to turn garden waste into rich compost as well as providing warm breeding grounds for slow worms and grass snakes. These animals will help you control slugs and snails organically.

Piles of woody waste from shrub pruning are excellent cover for newts, toads and lizards in the summer and will eventually rot down into managable compost.

Piles of stones and rocks and dry stone walls will also encourage amphibians and reptiles such as toads ,newts, slow worms and frogs to linger and help with your garden pest control.

If you are lucky your ponds can be frequented by grass snakes, attractive brown snakes with a yellow colour. Grass snakes are harmless to pets and people but will hunt garden pests and small pond creatures. Toads,frogs and newts may well breed in a garden ponds with out goldfish which will predate them. Gardens ponds can replace as farm ponds which are lost due to changes in farming practices.