Why a meadow garden is a hedgehog's best friend

Hedgehogs are creatures of the edges. They like a bit of scruff, a bit of cover, and plenty of invertebrates to hoover up after dark. A wildflower meadow, even a small one, delivers all three. The longer grass offers shelter, the flowers pull in the beetles, caterpillars and earwigs that make up most of a hedgehog's diet, and the tussocky margins give somewhere to nest.

The trouble is that a single garden, however lovely, isn't enough. Hedgehogs roam widely — a mile or more in a single night — and a garden that's cut off from its neighbours becomes a trap rather than a home. The single most useful thing you can do is connect your meadow to the wider landscape.

Open up the hedgehog highway

A hedgehog can squeeze through a gap roughly the size of a CD case: about 13 centimetres square. That's smaller than most people expect, and it's easy to build into an existing boundary.

• Cut a 13cm square gap at ground level in the bottom of wooden fences, or lift a gravel board and leave the space beneath.
• For concrete panel fences, remove a small section at the base using a bolster chisel, or replace one panel's bottom rail with a removable block.
• At the base of brick walls, leave out a couple of bricks on the lowest course — or create a gap under a gate.
• Check that the gap lines up with your neighbour's gap, and encourage them to add one. Two or three gardens in a row can transform a street.
• If you have a solid boundary with a public footpath or a playing field, a gap there is just as valuable as one between gardens.

Slug traps aside, gates and fences aren't the only obstruction. Netting strung low across beds, tennis nets left out overnight, and loose pea netting all snare hedgehogs. Keep netting pulled taut and at least 30cm above the soil, and take it down when it's not in use.

Make the meadow a safe place to forage

This is the part that matters most. A meadow buzzing with life is a buffet, but it can also be a hazard if you're not careful about how you manage it.

• Never use slug pellets. Metaldehyde is banned for outdoor use in the UK, and even ferric phosphate-based pellets can harm hedgehogs indirectly by removing their food. Slugs and snails are a staple. Let the hedgehogs do the work.
• Avoid insecticides and weedkillers on the meadow. Broad-spectrum sprays wipe out the invertebrates a hedgehog needs.
• Cut the meadow in rotational sections, a third at a time, and always check the standing grass with your hands or a stick before strimming. Hedgehogs rest in long grass during the day, especially in summer.
• Cut from the middle outwards, or from one edge, so anything hiding has an escape route rather than being driven into a corner.
• Leave the cut grass in a heap for a day or two so creatures can crawl out before you compost it.
• Check bonfire piles on the day you light them — move the whole heap a metre before setting it alight.

Create quiet corners with leaves and logs

A tidy meadow is a poor hedgehog meadow. What you want is a corner that never gets cut, never gets strimmed, and slowly builds up a layer of leaves and dead wood.

Pile fallen leaves into a heap in a shaded spot against a fence or under a shrub. Leave a few logs and prunings to rot down nearby. Add a compost heap if you have room — hedgehogs often nest in them, so always fork the heap over gently before emptying it, and never dig into the base without checking.

The ideal hibernation nest, or hibernaculum, is a dome of leaves, moss and grass about 30–50cm across, tucked under a hedge, log pile or shed. Resist the urge to tidy these away in autumn. A meadow garden left slightly rough through November to March gives hedgehogs somewhere to sleep through the coldest months.

Food, water and shelter through the year

Hedgehogs don't hibernate in one solid block. Mild winters mean they wake, forage and go back to sleep, which is when a bit of supplementary food helps.

• Put out tinned cat or dog food in jelly, or specialist hedgehog biscuits. Never bread and milk — it causes diarrhoea and can kill.
• Use a shallow dish, and place it under a shelter or a weighted plant pot with a 13cm entrance so cats and foxes can't pinch it.
• Provide fresh water every day, in a shallow bowl. Hedgehogs drink a surprising amount.
• If you have a pond, make sure one edge has a gentle slope or add a ramp of stones and twigs so anything that falls in can climb out.
• Cover any open drains, and check window wells and light wells for stranded animals.
• Avoid leaving out food in summer when natural prey is plentiful; it can draw rats and discourage natural foraging.

Watching without disturbing

The best sign that your meadow is working is a hedgehog quietly going about its business at dusk. To check without intruding, look for droppings — dark, cylindrical and full of shiny beetle cases — along paths and lawn edges. Listen for rustling in the long grass after dark, and consider a torch with a red filter, which disturbs them far less than white light.

If you find a hedgehog out in daylight, or one that looks wobbly, thin or injured, that's usually a sign something's wrong. Contact a local wildlife rescue for advice rather than trying to treat it yourself. Otherwise, leave well alone, keep the dog out of the long grass at night, and let the meadow do its quiet work. A garden with a gap in the fence, a leaf pile in the corner and no slug pellets is a garden that hedgehogs will find — and come back to.