A Welcoming Space
What?
Creating a welcoming space for wildlife means making your garden or grounds safe, healthy and accessible for all species — including people. By providing lifecycle resources - food, water, refuge/shelter, keeping water clean, and protecting the peace of night, you’ll help ensure that every living thing can share the Island’s spaces in safety.
Where?
Everywhere: in gardens, schools, farms, community spaces, and business sites. From the centre of Newport to the coastal edges of Yarmouth or Ventnor, each outdoor area can offer a haven for nature if managed with care. For site-specific actions, check out the Isle of Wight Habitat Map, and find out what is particularly special around your garden or space.
How?
Avoid pesticides and herbicides. Choose manual or natural weed control methods and support soil health instead.
Prevent pollution. Avoid washing or rinsing chemicals, paints, or composts into drains — they flow straight into our rivers and coastal waters.
Manage pets and visitors considerately. Keep dogs to paths during bird-nesting season and provide shallow escape routes in ponds or troughs for small animals.
Don’t be too tidy. Tidiness often removes the very materials that wildlife depends on — fallen leaves, seed heads, stems, and old wood all provide food, shelter and nesting spaces. Aim for a balance: neat where you need it, wild where you can.
Break up reflections on glass. Birds often mistake reflected trees or sky for open flight paths. Apply stickers, light netting, or film to the exterior glass, and adjust interior blinds or lights at night to reduce reflective glare.
Reduce lighting at night. Darker gardens help nocturnal wildlife.
Provide safe water. Add pebbles or ramps to ponds, troughs and buckets so hedgehogs, bees, and amphibians can climb out easily.
Plant a mix of native and non-invasive ornamentals. Diverse planting makes the space beautiful and beneficial for wildlife.
Include people. Add seating, learn about your local wildlife, in public areas, include small info boards so others can learn, watch, and enjoy wildlife too.
When?
All year round. A welcoming space grows through small, regular acts of care — reducing disturbance in spring and summer, topping up water in dry months, and cleaning feeders and water dishes through winter.
Why?
A welcoming space provides essential support for our wildlife to survive. Strengthening that link between us and nature improves our wellbeing, and brings daily contact with the living systems we depend on. These small refuges build into an Island-wide network of nature recovery, helping the Isle of Wight’s Biosphere thrive.
Actions for Isle of Wight Species
The West European Hedgehog has been identified as a Champion species for the Island, meaning it really needs our help to survive. Hedgehogs benefit from chemical-free gardens with safe water sources and passage gaps through fences.
Amphibians use clean ponds with gentle slopes to drink and breed safely. The Common Frog, Common Toad and Great Crested Newt are Champion species, in need of extra help in urban areas.
Bats and moths flourish when gardens stay dark after dusk. The Garden Tiger and Buttoned Snout moths are Champion species, along with the Greater Horseshoe Bat, Grey Long-eared Bat, Nathusius's Pipistrelle and Serotine bat.
Observe and Record
Take photos before and after — even a few months apart shows change.
Note what wildlife visits: bees, birds, butterflies, mosses.
Watching your patch change is part of the recovery story — and your records can feed into the Island’s Local Nature Recovery data.
“Contributes to LNRS overarching measures that promote stewardship, reduced pollution, and community action: CR2.1 Water quality management in source- protection zones | LGH2.1 Nutrient management and control on grasslands | LGH2.2 Nutrient management and control in headwaters | UGG1.4 Urban pollution control”