Create a bat-friendly garden

Bats are a good indicator of a healthy, balanced environment, but they face challenges with habitat loss due to building developments, cat attacks, artificial light and the impact of road construction. Bats go into hibernation over winter, which gives us the chance to instigate plans and make changes to our gardens.

And I've got five ways to help you make your garden more bat friendly. and I've got five ways to help you make your garden more bat friendly. One, stop using chemical pesticides. Go organic. Bats are insectivores and can literally eat thousands of insects in one night. So spraying your garden with nasty chemicals will poison bats prey and may even kill bats over time if toxins have accumulated in their body.

You want to encourage insects into your garden and let the natural predators take care of them. 2. Plant flowers to entice insects to your garden. Bats hunt at dusk on the wing, so plant night-scented flowers like Nicotiana, evening primrose and night-scented jasmine, which will attract midges lacewings and flies. Leave a patch of grass to grow long and plant wild flowers whether you have space for a meadow a border or some pots bat specific seed balls are a really easy way to introduce flowers like borage cornflowers night scented stocks to your garden and it should generate a bat banquet.

and it should generate a bat banquet. Three, make a water feature. Introduce a pond to your garden, however small it's going to benefit all the wildlife in your garden. From providing a watering hole to attracting insects. If you do not have space, though, for a wildlife pond, then don't panic.

Make a water feature in a container. That will create vital habitat and a place for insects to congregate. Four, reduce light pollution. Artificial lights at night can severely disrupt bat behaviour. It might trick them into thinking it's daylight and they might miss their window of opportunity to hunt.

So if you can, avoid illuminating trees and hedges, point lamps facing downwards and install motion sensors to minimalise impact. Five, provide shelter. Put up a bat box. If you've got a large mature tree or an uninstructed wall such as under the eaves of your house then you can mount a bat box. Place it at least four to five metres off the ground as habitat may be dwindling give bats somewhere to roost.

Be mindful of where you place the box, the ground below is likely to become accumulated with bat droppings so choose your spot wisely because once it's sited you need to leave it untouched. Bat boxes are protected under UK law and can only be opened by a licensed bat worker. For further details see the Bat Conservation Trust website. And that's my five tips to make your garden more bat friendly.