Garden rewilding is a journey. We’re excited to share our journey with you through “The Nature Reserve Next Door: How to Turn Any Garden Into a Wildlife Sanctuary”.

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5.3 Cottage Garden Rewilding

Cottage gardens, the larger rural, village, or smallholding plots that characterise much of British and northern European rural housing, already have many structural advantages over urban gardens: established hedgerows, older and more diverse planted stock, fruit trees, vegetable areas, composting traditions, and often a richer underlying soil biology from decades of low-input management.

The rewilding opportunity in a cottage garden is therefore less about creating habitats from scratch and more about extending, connecting, and ecologically enriching what already exists.

High-Impact Features in a Cottage Garden

• Meadow orchard logic: native orchard trees (crab apple, wild cherry, pear) combined with flower-rich grass managed as meadow underneath is one of the most ecologically and aesthetically rich combinations available in the temperate garden

• Expanded hedge networks with layered climbers (ivy at the base for ground cover and late nectar; honeysuckle in the mid-layer for night-moth nectar; bramble at the edges for invertebrate and bird value)

• Multiple micro-wetlands: one main pond, one seasonal scrape (a shallow, seasonally flooded depression that dries in summer - supporting specialist invertebrates that cannot survive permanent water), and one wet swale or rain garden

• Deadwood zones rather than single log piles: a dead hedge line (branches stacked between posts in a ‘fedge’ structure) providing continuous linear habitat; a stag beetle log cluster (buried hardwood logs in a sunny position) if stag beetles are present in your county

• A south-facing stone bank or rubble pile for reptile habitat, particularly valuable in warmer southern counties for common lizard and slow worm

Hopefully Chapter five has given you some basic approaches to rewilding many smaller garden types. The real secret is not just rewilding your own garden as an isolated activity, but also to set an example and create the conditions for this vital movement to ripple throughout your neighbourhood.

Join us next week for “Chapter Six: The Seasonal Calendar and Ongoing Stewardship”

Get more LettsSafari updates and wildlife photos on X. And read the latest posts at the LettsSafari + website.

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What is the Sussex Bay rewilding project?

Sussex Bay is a collaborative nature recovery initiative aiming to improve approximately 100 miles of marine environment along the Sussex coastline. The waters are home to species including dolphins, porpoises, seahorses, rays, seals and kelp. Rather than concentrating on one species or habitat, the project takes a much broader approach. It considers how kelp forests, oyster reefs, saltmarshes, rivers, coastal habitats and inland landscapes interact with one another, and how the people living alongside them can become part of their recovery.

The project has already supported initiatives including oyster restoration, citizen-science research, marine wildlife monitoring and work to improve understanding of the local marine environment. But perhaps the most important idea behind Sussex Bay is connectivity.

A healthy kelp forest, for example, is more resilient if surrounding habitats are healthy too. Saltmarsh can help filter pollution. Oyster reefs can improve water quality. Rivers connect inland landscapes with the sea. Strengthening one part of the system can therefore help another. The same principle applies much closer to home.

Your garden isn’t an island

It is tempting to think of rewilding a garden as creating one particularly wildlife-friendly space.

Plant some wildflowers - Put up a bird box - Build a small pond - Leave part of the lawn unmown.

All of these are useful but their impact becomes much greater when we start thinking about how wildlife moves between spaces. Your garden might connect a nearby park with another garden:

• A hedge might provide a route for hedgehogs.

• A row of flowering plants could become one small feeding station in a much larger network used by bees and butterflies.

• A tree could provide shelter between two larger areas of habitat.

• Even a balcony covered with nectar-rich plants can become a small stepping stone for pollinating insects moving through a city.

The goal isn’t necessarily to create a complete ecosystem in your own garden.

It is to make your patch part of a bigger one.

Five ways to create a wildlife stepping stone at home

1. Plant for movement as well as appearance

Think about where wildlife might enter and leave your garden. Planting along fences, walls and boundaries can create continuous vegetation rather than isolated flower beds. Climbers, shrubs, native flowers and grasses can create useful cover and feeding opportunities. If several neighbouring gardens do something similar, the result can become a genuine wildlife corridor.

2. Make your boundaries permeable

Solid fences can be surprisingly difficult for wildlife. Hedgehogs in particular need to travel significant distances while searching for food and mates. Creating a small opening at ground level between neighbouring gardens can help transform several individual gardens into one much larger habitat network. Better still, coordinate with neighbours so several gardens become connected.

3. Create several layers of habitat

Natural habitats rarely consist of plants at one height. Try combining:

• ground-covering plants

• wildflowers and grasses

• shrubs

• climbers

• trees where space allows

Different species use different parts of this structure. A layered garden therefore offers more opportunities for feeding, nesting, shelter and movement.

4. Add water

One of the most effective things you can do for wildlife is provide water. It doesn’t have to be a large pond. A small container pond can support insects and other wildlife, while birds and mammals may use it for drinking. Make sure wildlife has an easy way in and out, using stones, gravel or gently sloping edges. Avoid introducing fish into wildlife ponds because they can eat aquatic insects and larvae.

5. Talk to your neighbours

This may be the most important lesson from Sussex Bay. Nature recovery becomes easier when people collaborate. Imagine ten neighbouring gardens each creating a small patch of pollinator-friendly planting, or several households making fence openings for hedgehogs, or a street deciding to plant native flowers around tree pits.

Individually, each action is small. Together, they create habitat.

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Think beyond the garden

Urban rewilding can extend far beyond private gardens. Small areas around:

• apartment blocks

• schools

• offices

• community centres

• churchyards

• car parks

• roadside verges

...can all become useful wildlife habitat.

Even spaces that appear insignificant to us may be valuable stepping stones for wildlife moving across increasingly fragmented landscapes.

How LettsSafari helps

LettsSafari was created around exactly this principle: many people taking practical action can collectively create meaningful space for nature. Through LettsSafari, members can support rewilding projects while also learning how to encourage wildlife closer to home. It turns rewilding from something that can feel distant or enormous into something people can participate in. You might start with a window box. Someone else might rewild part of their lawn. Another person might create a pond. Elsewhere, larger areas of land can be allowed to recover.

Connect enough of those actions and something important starts to happen: nature gets more room to move, and more room to return.

Here are six things to keep an eye out for this month.

Hedgehogs

Hedgehogs are still active in September, usually coming out after dark to look for food. They spend their nights searching for beetles, worms, caterpillars and other invertebrates.

If you’re lucky enough to spot one, give it plenty of space and watch from a distance.

Red admirals

You can still see butterflies on warmer September days, including red admirals. They’re often found around gardens, woodland edges and areas with late-flowering plants.

September can be a good month to keep an eye on flowers and see what’s still buzzing around them.

Fungi

As the weather becomes cooler and damper, fungi starts appearing across woodland floors, fallen logs and grassy areas.

There are thousands of species of fungi in the UK, so September is a great time to slow down and look closely. Remember to admire them rather than picking or eating anything you find.

Bats

Bats are still active in September, particularly around dusk when they head out to feed. They use echolocation to find and catch insects in the dark.

If you’re outside in the evening, look up and you might spot one flying overhead.

Goldfinches

Goldfinches are easy to recognise with their bright red faces and yellow wing markings. They’re often found feeding on seeds, particularly in areas with thistles and other seed-producing plants.

Keep an eye out for them in gardens, hedgerows and open areas.

Rosehips

It’s not just animals to look out for this month. Rosehips start to stand out in September as they develop on wild roses.

Their bright red-orange fruits provide food for birds and other wildlife, making them an important part of the autumn landscape.

Keep an eye out 👀

Next time you’re outside, take a little more time to look around. You might be surprised by what you find!

Ecologists forecast the work could increase biodiversity on the site by approximately 90%. The scale may be bigger than the average garden, business park or community space, but the principles behind it can be applied almost anywhere. And that is where smaller-scale rewilding gets interesting.

The lesson from Lancaster: make every piece of land work harder for nature

The Burrow Beck project demonstrates that we do not necessarily have to choose between land being useful for people and useful for wildlife. The same land can produce renewable electricity while also providing food, shelter and habitat for wildlife. That principle translates remarkably well to smaller spaces:

• A garden can still be somewhere to sit and entertain while containing native flowers.

• An office development can still have landscaped grounds while providing hedges, trees and nesting habitat.

• A balcony can still look attractive while supplying nectar for pollinators.

• A school field, verge, courtyard or communal garden can perform its original purpose while doing considerably more for biodiversity.

The goal isn’t necessarily to abandon a space to nature.

It is to increase the amount of nature that the space can support.

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How to rewild a small space: five practical ideas

1. Replace some grass with flowers

One of the simplest changes is reducing the amount of frequently mown grass. Instead, allow a section to grow longer or introduce native wildflowers. Longer grass and flowering plants can provide food and shelter for insects, which in turn support birds and other wildlife. You don’t have to turn the whole garden into a meadow. Start with a strip along a fence, a corner of the lawn or even a large container.

Think less mowing, more flowering.

2. Create layers of habitat

Burrow Beck combines several different habitat types rather than relying on one intervention and you can apply the same principle at home. Try combining:

• flowering plants

• shrubs

• a small native tree

• longer grass

• dead wood

• climbing plants

• a small pond or water source

• Different species need different things.

A garden containing several layers of vegetation is generally more valuable to wildlife than a garden consisting almost entirely of lawn - even a small space can contain surprising complexity.

3. Add water

Water can be one of the most valuable additions to a wildlife-friendly space. And you don’t need a large pond. A container pond made from a half barrel, washing-up bowl or other watertight container can provide habitat for insects and drinking water for birds and other wildlife. Allow plants to grow around the edges and provide an easy escape route for anything that falls in. Small interventions can create disproportionately useful habitats.

4. Connect your patch to the neighbourhood

Wildlife doesn’t recognise property boundaries. That means your garden becomes more useful when it connects with other green spaces nearby.

• Hedges rather than solid fences can create wildlife corridors.

• Small gaps beneath fences can help species such as hedgehogs travel between gardens.

• Climbing plants can provide vertical habitat where ground space is limited.

• Street trees, gardens, allotments, balconies and parks can collectively form a network.

One garden might be small but a neighbourhood full of wildlife-friendly gardens is something much bigger.

5. Manage less

Sometimes rewilding is as much about what you stop doing as what you add:

• Leave seed heads through winter.

• Allow leaves to gather beneath shrubs.

• Keep some dead wood.

• Avoid unnecessary pesticides.

• Let some grass grow longer.

• Allow a few plants to seed naturally.

A perfectly tidy garden often removes exactly the materials that insects, birds and other animals need. Giving nature slightly more freedom can have a surprisingly large effect.

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Start with the lowest-diversity part of your space

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Burrow Beck is where the project started. The council describes the original agricultural land as species-poor. That gives us another useful rewilding rule: don’t necessarily start with the wildest part of your garden. Start with the least wild.

Look around your space:

• Is there a bare fence?

• A permanently short lawn?

• A paved corner?

• An unused planter?

• A sterile area of gravel?

• A wall with nothing growing against it?

• These are opportunities.

You are looking for places where a relatively small intervention could create a large ecological improvement.

Where LettsSafari fits in

At LettsSafari, we believe rewilding should be something people can participate in rather than simply something they read about. You don’t need to own a large estate nor do you need to become a conservation expert.

And you don’t need to transform your entire garden overnight.

LettsSafari helps people take part in nature recovery in two complementary ways. First, our subscriptions help support our practical smaller-scale rewilding projects in the UK. Second, we help our community discover straightforward ways to make their own gardens, balconies and neighbourhood spaces more welcoming to wildlife.

The two ideas reinforce each other.

Your small-space rewilding checklist

If you want to begin this week, try just one of these:

• Leave a section of grass unmown

• Sow native wildflowers

• Plant a wildlife-friendly shrub

• Add a container pond

• Create a gap for hedgehogs

• Leave some fallen leaves beneath shrubs

• Put away pesticides

• Add a climbing plant to a bare wall or fence

• Leave seed heads standing over winter

Don’t worry about doing everything.

Choose one patch. Make it slightly wilder. Then see what turns up.

Created in 2006, the garden was developed with Tate Modern and Bankside Open Spaces Trust (BOST) to create a shared green space for local residents. It includes flower beds, fruit trees, herbs, a wildlife pond and a labyrinth, providing space for both people and wildlife.

What makes the garden interesting is how much it fits into such a small urban space. In an area dominated by buildings, tourists and busy streets, it provides a quieter place where people can garden, volunteer and spend time outdoors.

The garden is looked after by local volunteers, with activities including planting, gardening and wildlife projects. It shows how even small community-led spaces can contribute to biodiversity and make cities feel a little greener.

It’s also a good reminder that urban nature doesn’t always have to mean a large park. Sometimes, a small patch of land can create a valuable space for wildlife and bring a community together.

📍 Tate Modern Community Garden, Bankside, London

Sayer’s Old Meadow in North Norfolk, a former arable field has transformed into a flourishing wildflower meadow. More than 150 plant species have now been recorded on the site, which was previously used for intensive agriculture. The meadow also supports butterflies, hoverflies and birds. Rather than being replanted with a commercial wildflower seed mix, the land was largely allowed to regenerate naturally.

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The approach has been surprisingly straightforward: allow the vegetation to grow, cut the meadow for hay annually and remove the cuttings. Research from University College London found that plant diversity increased steadily during the study period. The average number of species recorded in individual survey plots roughly doubled between 2011 and 2022, with species including yellow rattle and southern marsh orchid appearing naturally.

It is an impressive ecological success story. But what can the rest of us learn from it?

You don’t need a field in Norfolk to experiment with the idea.

1. Stop mowing part of your lawn

Choose a section of lawn and simply allow the grass to grow. It doesn’t need to be the entire garden. A strip along a fence, an area beneath a tree or even a small corner can provide additional habitat. Watch what happens before deciding whether you need to plant anything. Existing plants may flower. New species may arrive. Longer grass can provide shelter for insects and other wildlife. The important thing is to give the space time.

2. Remove the cuttings

One of the important lessons from Sayer’s Old Meadow is the role of traditional hay management. At the Norfolk site, the meadow is cut and the hay removed. Why does this matter? Removing cut vegetation gradually removes nutrients from the soil. Extremely fertile soil tends to favour vigorous grasses and a relatively small number of dominant plants. Lower nutrient levels can create opportunities for a wider variety of meadow species. So if you’re trying to establish a meadow area at home, don’t simply leave cut grass lying where it falls.

3. Don’t judge your experiment after one summer

Rewilding operates on nature’s timetable rather than ours. Sayer’s Meadow developed over many years. The UCL research followed vegetation changes from 2011 to 2022 and found species richness continuing to increase over that period. Your garden isn’t likely to produce thousands of orchids next spring. Instead, look for incremental changes:

• Are more plants flowering?

• Are you seeing more bees or butterflies?

• Are birds spending more time in the garden?

• Are different plants beginning to appear?

• Are there more insects among the longer vegetation?

• Treat the garden as an experiment rather than a finished landscaping project.

4. Let plants arrive before deciding what is missing

Wildflower seed mixes can be useful, particularly where natural regeneration is unlikely. But don’t automatically assume you need one. Seeds can arrive through wind, birds, mammals and other natural processes. Researchers studying Sayer’s Meadow believe animals such as deer may even have helped some plants colonise the site. In a garden, your equivalent seed distributors might be birds, squirrels - or simply the wind. Give natural regeneration a chance first then intervene selectively if the results need a helping hand.

5. Create different levels of wildness

Rewilding doesn’t have to mean abandoning an entire garden. Try creating a patchwork. You might have:

A frequently used area - keep paths, seating areas and spaces used by children or pets relatively managed.

A lightly managed area - mow this less frequently and allow flowers such as clover and daisies to bloom.

A wild area - allow grasses and other vegetation to grow for much longer before cutting.

This creates different habitats within even a small space. It also makes rewilding much easier to live with.

6. Observe before you interfere

Perhaps the most interesting habit to borrow from the Norfolk experiment is simply watching what happens. Take photographs of your wild patch once a month. Make a note of plants you recognise. Record butterflies, bees and birds.

You’ll gradually build a picture of how your small ecosystem is changing. You could even use citizen-science apps to identify species and contribute observations to biodiversity records. Suddenly, the neglected corner of the garden isn’t neglected at all. It’s a tiny ecological experiment.

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Small spaces add up

Britain has lost the overwhelming majority of its species-rich traditional meadows over the past century. The remaining fragments are therefore enormously important for plants, pollinators and other wildlife. We can’t recreate those landscapes overnight.

But we can create more places where nature has room to operate.

Gardens.

Balconies.

Community spaces.

School grounds.

Roadside verges.

Business premises.

Even a few square metres can become another stepping stone connecting wildlife through an increasingly fragmented landscape.

That’s where the thinking behind LettsSafari comes in.

LettsSafari is built around the idea that rewilding shouldn’t be something only governments, conservation organisations or large landowners can participate in.

You can make changes in your own space while also supporting wider small-scale rewilding projects.

It turns rewilding from something you simply read about into something you can actually participate in.

London is experiencing one of it’s driest periods in decades. After months of very low rainfall and repeated heatwaves, drought has been officially declared across the capital, while water restrictions are already in place for Thames Water customers.

For those of us living in the city, drought can sometimes feel like something that mainly affects farmers, reservoirs and the countryside. But London’s wildlife and green spaces are feeling the effects too. Rivers and ponds are under pressure, plants are struggling in dry soils and animals are having to find water and food in increasingly difficult conditions.

There are some simple things we can all do to help.

Use less water

The most obvious place to start is at home. Small changes to everyday water use can add up when they’re made across a whole city.

During a drought, this is particularly important when it comes to gardens and plants. If you have outdoor space, avoid unnecessary watering and follow any local water restrictions. Using a watering can rather than a hosepipe can also help you control how much water you’re using.

It’s also worth thinking about where your water comes from. Rainwater can be collected and reused for plants when conditions allow, rather than letting it disappear straight down the drain. London receives a huge amount of rainfall over the course of a year, so finding ways to keep and reuse that water can make a difference.

Don’t worry about keeping everything green

A dry lawn isn’t necessarily a problem.

During periods of drought, it’s natural for grass and some plants to turn brown. There’s no need to try to keep every patch of grass looking perfectly green.

Allowing some areas to grow naturally can actually benefit wildlife. Longer grass and wild plants provide food and shelter for insects, while reducing the need for watering and mowing.

Instead of trying to maintain a perfect lawn, we can give parts of our gardens and local green spaces the opportunity to become more wildlife-friendly.

Make space for wildlife

Drought can make it harder for wildlife to find water, particularly in built-up areas.

If you have a garden, balcony or other outdoor space, consider planting drought-tolerant, pollinator-friendly plants. London City Hall recommends planting flowers that provide food for bees and other pollinators, while also highlighting the importance of drought-resistant gardening.

Even a small space can help. London has almost a quarter of its land area covered by gardens, meaning individual gardens can collectively create important networks of habitat across the city.

Think about how rain moves through the city

It might seem strange to think about rain during a drought, but how we manage rainfall is becoming increasingly important.

A lot of London’s urban landscape is covered by paving, concrete and other impermeable surfaces. When it does rain, water can quickly run into drains rather than soaking into the ground.

Removing a small section of paving, planting a garden or creating a rain garden can help water soak into the soil instead. These changes can support wildlife, reduce surface water flooding and help retain more water within the environment.

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Look after your local green spaces

You don’t need a garden to help.

Community gardens, parks, nature reserves and local wildlife projects all rely on people getting involved. Volunteering, joining a local planting project or simply helping to look after a shared green space can make a difference.

London already has thousands of people volunteering to manage habitats, record wildlife and support local nature projects.

Drought is a reminder that our green spaces need looking after just as much as we do. And when those spaces are cared for by the communities around them, they can become more resilient to the challenges of a changing climate.

Small changes add up

There’s no single thing that will solve London’s water problems, and individual action shouldn’t take the place of the bigger changes needed from water companies and policymakers.

But there are things we can do in our own homes and neighbourhoods.

Use less water. Let some areas grow. Plant for wildlife. Collect rainwater where appropriate. Support your local green spaces.

London is already a surprisingly green city, and its gardens, parks, rivers and smaller pockets of nature are all connected. Looking after them means looking after the wildlife that depends on them, too!

The drought is a difficult reminder of how much we rely on water. It also gives us an opportunity to think differently about how we use it and how we create greener, more resilient places to live.

Sometimes helping nature starts with simply making a little more space for it!

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As LettsSafari continues to grow, we wanted the website to do more than simply tell people what we do. It’s a place to share our rewilding work, introduce the wildlife that benefits from these spaces and give people a better understanding of why restoring nature matters.

The new design brings everything together in one place, from our rewilding projects and wildlife to our latest news and resources. We’ve also made it easier to explore the different ways you can learn about, support and connect with nature.

Whether you’re new to LettsSafari or have been following us for a while, we’d love for you to have a look around!

As we continues to grow, so will the website.

You can find out more about our approach to rewilding, explore our work and keep up with what’s happening across our sites.

Visit the new LettsSafari website and let us know what you think.

We’ll continue sharing more here on our Substack about rewilding, wildlife, urban nature and the people and communities helping to create a better future for nature so subscribe to us today!

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A recent Guardian article highlighted the idea of creating mounds in gardens using existing soil, rubble, branches and organic material, drawing inspiration from our good friends at Knepp in West Sussex. At Knepp, material that could have been removed as waste was instead reused to form an undulating dry garden, providing planting opportunities and habitat for insects.

It’s a simple idea with an important principle behind it: the more varied the habitat, the more opportunities you can create for nature.

And it’s something you can try in even a relatively small urban garden.

Why a Flat Garden Isn’t Always Best for Wildlife

Most conventional gardens are designed around flat lawns, straight borders and clearly defined spaces.

Wild landscapes rarely look like that - they contain slopes, banks, fallen branches, bare ground, sheltered hollows, exposed sunny areas and countless small variations in height, moisture and temperature.

These variations create microhabitats - small areas offering slightly different conditions for plants, insects and other wildlife. Introducing even a small mound can therefore increase the variety within your garden.

How to Create a Wildlife-Friendly Garden Mound

You don’t need to undertake major landscaping. Start with materials you already have.

1. Save surplus soil

If you’re digging a pond, installing a path or creating new planting areas, don’t automatically dispose of the soil. Consider using it elsewhere in the garden to create gentle mounds or raised planting areas. Rather than sending excavated soil away in a skip, it can become part of the garden itself.

2. Add logs and branches

Dead wood is one of the most useful materials in a wildlife garden. Instead of cutting branches into small pieces and removing them, place some underneath your mound. As the wood gradually decomposes, it helps create a richer structure beneath the soil.

This approach is similar to “hugelkultur“, a long-established gardening technique in which mounds are created using decaying wood, branches and other organic material covered with soil.

3. Use turf rather than throwing it away

If you’re removing sections of lawn, turn the turf upside down and incorporate it into your mound. The grass will break down over time and return organic material to the soil. It is another example of a useful rule for wildlife gardening:

Before taking something out of your garden, ask whether nature could use it somewhere else.

4. Create different aspects

Even a mound less than a metre high can create different conditions. One side might receive full sun. Another could remain cooler and shaded. The top may drain quickly while the bottom retains more moisture. These differences give you opportunities to grow a wider mixture of plants.

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Plant Your Mound for Wildlife

Once your mound is established, avoid treating it as another conventional flower bed. Think about layers.

You could combine:

• ground-cover plants

• grasses

• wildflowers

• flowering perennials

• small shrubs

• herbs

• climbing or trailing plants

Aim to provide different heights, shapes and flowering periods. Use repetition alongside different heights, colours and textures when planting a mound. From a wildlife perspective, variety can also extend the amount of time your garden provides useful food and shelter.

Don’t Make Everything Too Tidy

A wildlife-friendly mound doesn’t need to look abandoned but it doesn’t need to look immaculate either. Allow some leaves to remain, leave occasional stems standing, keep pieces of exposed wood or let plants seed naturally in places.

A small amount of disorder can provide valuable hiding places and overwintering habitat. The aim isn’t to stop gardening. It is to garden with wildlife in mind.

Connect Your Mound to Other Mini Habitats

The real opportunity comes when your mound becomes part of a larger network. Alongside it, consider adding:

A small pond or water container: Even a tiny source of water can add another type of habitat.

A log pile: Stack branches or pieces of untreated timber somewhere sheltered.

A patch of longer grass: Rather than mowing everything at the same height, allow one area to grow.

Pollinator-friendly planting: Choose plants that provide pollen and nectar through as much of the year as possible.

Dense shrubs: Shrubs can provide shelter and potential nesting habitat while creating another layer of vegetation.

You don’t need all of them. Adding one new habitat at a time gradually makes your garden more varied.

Rewilding Is About Variety, Not Size

This is perhaps the most useful lesson from the story.

The inspiration may come from Knepp - one of Britain’s best-known rewilding projects - but the same principle can be applied in a long, narrow urban garden. You don’t have to recreate a giant nature reserve, uou simply create more opportunities for nature within the space you already have.

Where LettsSafari Fits In

LettsSafari is built around the idea that people shouldn’t need to own large areas of countryside to participate in rewilding. You can start where you are.

Through LettsSafari, subscribers can learn practical ways to encourage nature back into gardens, balconies and other small spaces while also contributing to wider rewilding activity.

That creates two complementary forms of action:

Rewild at home.
Make small changes that create more space for wildlife around you.

Support rewilding elsewhere.
Help fund larger-scale nature restoration beyond your own garden.

The goal isn’t to turn every garden into wilderness overnight.

It’s to help thousands of people make one achievable change — and then another.

Five Small Rewilding Actions to Try This Weekend

If creating a mound sounds interesting, start small.

1. Leave one pile of logs or branches somewhere sheltered.

2. Allow one patch of grass to grow longer.

3. Turn an unused container into a miniature wildlife pond.

4. Create a small mound from spare soil, turf or organic material.

5. Plant one additional wildlife-friendly plant.

The best small-scale rewilding projects often begin with something surprisingly simple. Sometimes even a pile of earth can become habitat.

Garden rewilding is a journey. We’re excited to share our journey with you through “The Nature Reserve Next Door: How to Turn Any Garden Into a Wildlife Sanctuary”.

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5.2 Medium Urban Garden Build

A medium urban garden of 120–300+ m² offers enough space to implement the LettsSafari three-habitat mosaic as a literal, spatially distinct structure: three interlocking zones of grassland, scrub, and trees, connected by a water thread. The recommended approach is to split the rewilded area (roughly one-third or more of the total garden area) into roughly equal grassland, scrub, and tree-associated zones.

Key Upgrades Versus a Small Garden

• A two-meadow system: one ‘spring meadow’ that flowers early and is then managed (cut and arisings removed) in late summer; one ‘summer meadow’ patch left long until the autumn cut, providing overwintering habitat for butterfly larvae in the grass tussocks

• A proper wet edge: a wildlife pond of at least 3 m in the longest dimension, feeding into an actual bog garden strip, which in turn spills into a damp grass margin planted with ragged robin, marsh marigold, and water mint

• A native mixed hedge of around five species, with climbers (ivy and honeysuckle) growing through it and a rough base of leaf litter and bramble below

• Hedgehog highway connection: if appropriate and with the support of neighbours, a 13 cm × 13 cm gap at the base of your fence panels allows hedgehogs to follow established nightly routes through the garden network

• At least two or three standard or semi-standard native trees providing canopy structure - a field maple or crab apple in a sunny position; an alder or willow in any damp zone

Living in, or having access to a medium sized urban garden is a real privilege, and a wonderful opportunity to extend your traditional garden methods with your own mini, rewilded nature reserve. One that nature and wildlife will constantly thank you for.

Join us next week for “Chapter 5.3 Cottage Garden Rewilding”

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Get more LettsSafari updates and wildlife photos on X. And read the latest posts at the LettsSafari + website.

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In late July 2026, fire swept across more than 112 hectares of Dunwich Heath on the Suffolk coast, damaging one of Britain’s most important areas of lowland heath.

The reserve provides habitat for wildlife including nightjars, Dartford warblers, adders and specialist invertebrates. Conservationists have warned that some species have lost crucial habitat and that the effects on less mobile wildlife may be particularly severe.

The fire has also prompted a wider conversation about how we manage land as Britain’s summers become hotter and drier.

And one of the answers may lie in creating more varied, nature-rich landscapes.

How can rewilding reduce wildfire risk?

Rewilding doesn’t mean simply abandoning land.

At Dunwich Heath, the National Trust and RSPB already actively manage vegetation, remove material, maintain firebreaks and encourage different ages of heather. According to the National Trust, having vegetation of different ages can also help retain more moisture in the ground.

But conservationists are also looking at how nature itself can help make larger landscapes more resilient.

Possible approaches include:

• restoring wetlands that can create natural breaks in dry landscapes;

• using grazing animals to reduce accumulated dry vegetation;

• maintaining ponds and wetter areas;

• creating a mixture of woodland, scrub, grassland and open habitat;

• connecting habitats so wildlife has more places to move when conditions change.

At Dunwich, neighbouring wetlands helped limit the fire’s spread in some areas. Conservationists interviewed after the fire also pointed to beavers, winter grazing and more varied habitat mosaics as potential tools for making suitable landscapes more resilient.

The principle is bigger than wildfire.

Natural England argues that larger, better-connected and healthier natural areas give wildlife a better chance of surviving periods of extreme weather. The government’s Land Use Framework also identifies restoring wetlands and other nature-based solutions as part of improving resilience to climate impacts, including wildfire.

What does this have to do with your garden?

Quite a lot.

You probably aren’t going to introduce a herd of grazing animals or a family of beavers to your back garden.

But the underlying idea scales down surprisingly well: diversity creates resilience.

A garden made up almost entirely of paving and a closely cut lawn provides relatively few habitats. Introduce trees, shrubs, longer grass, flowers, water, dead wood and areas of shade and suddenly you have a much richer ecosystem. Different species can find food, shelter and cooler conditions in different places. And when thousands of gardens do this together, individual pockets of habitat begin to form something much more interesting: a network of urban nature.

Here are five ways to start.

1. Add water

Water is one of the quickest ways to increase the variety of wildlife visiting a garden. A small wildlife pond, sunken container or other safe source of water can provide drinking and bathing opportunities while creating habitat for insects and amphibians. Make sure wildlife has an easy way in and out, and avoid introducing fish if your goal is a wildlife-focused pond. The larger landscape principle is similar: wetlands provide habitat while also helping landscapes cope with environmental extremes.

2. Create different layers of vegetation

Think less about individual plants and more about habitat structure. Try combining:

• trees

• shrubs

• climbing plants

• flowers

• longer grasses

• ground-level vegetation

These different layers provide feeding, nesting and shelter opportunities for different species. Even a small garden can contain surprising structural diversity.

A balcony can do it too: tall grasses, flowering containers and climbing plants create several miniature layers of habitat in only a few square metres.

3. Leave some areas less tidy

Wildlife rarely shares our enthusiasm for immaculate gardens. A pile of leaves beneath a hedge, some dead stems left over winter or a small stack of logs can provide habitat for insects and other creatures. You don’t need to let the whole garden go wild. Choose a corner.

That distinction is important. Rewilding doesn’t have to mean doing nothing.

Sometimes helping nature means intervening less. Sometimes it means actively creating the conditions in which nature can thrive. The conservation work at Dunwich itself demonstrates this balance: vegetation is cut, scrub managed and firebreaks maintained specifically to protect its distinctive heathland ecosystem.

4. Give your lawn some variety

You don’t have to choose between a bowling green and an impenetrable jungle. Try mowing different areas at different heights. Keep some shorter grass where you want to sit or walk, but allow other sections to grow. Add flowering plants suited to your soil and local conditions. You begin creating a mosaic of habitats - the small-scale equivalent of the varied landscapes conservationists are trying to encourage more widely.

5. Connect your patch with the world outside

Perhaps the most important principle of small-scale rewilding is connection. Your garden doesn’t exist in isolation. Birds fly between gardens. Bees travel between flowers. Insects, amphibians and small mammals move through vegetation, hedges and gaps between properties. So ask:

Can wildlife get into my space?

Is there food when it arrives?

Is there somewhere to shelter?

Can it move onwards to another habitat?

A hedge instead of a solid fence, climbing plants against boundaries or a small gap beneath a fence can make your patch part of a much larger ecological network.

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Small actions become bigger ecosystems

The lesson from Dunwich isn’t that planting a pond in your garden will stop wildfires. The more useful lesson is that nature becomes more resilient when landscapes contain variety, water, connectivity and healthy habitat. That principle works at many different scales.

A major nature reserve can create wetlands, grazing systems and habitat mosaics. A community might rewild a park, roadside verge or shared green. And an individual household can turn a lawn, balcony, courtyard or garden into another stepping stone for wildlife.

That’s where LettsSafari comes in.

LettsSafari is built around the idea that you don’t need to own a huge piece of countryside to participate in rewilding. You can make your own space wilder while helping support wider rewilding activity. Taken together, those individual actions can help create something much bigger: a growing network of places where nature has more room to thrive.

Because the future of rewilding isn’t only about spectacular projects in remote landscapes.

It can start outside your back door.

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August in the city feels quiet. The swifts that were screaming over the rooftops all summer are gone. The birdsong that woke you up every morning since April has thinned right out. Everything feels a bit still.

But urban nature hasn’t wound down. It’s just shifted, and if you know what to look for, August in a city is fascinating!

The sky has changed

The swifts left. One evening they’re there, the next the sky is empty, off on a non-stop journey to South Africa that the young birds departing now will sustain for two or three years without landing once. Their disappearance is one of the sharpest seasonal signals there is, and most people in cities miss it entirely.

What replaces them at dusk is bats. August is their peak month, warm evenings, insects still abundant, and no competition from migrating birds. Stand outside after sunset in almost any London street, park or churchyard and you’ll see them. Most people have no idea how many bats are living in their city.

What’s happening at ground level

Urban foxes are in an interesting place right now. The cubs born in spring are almost fully grown but still figuring things out, exploring further, learning their territory, encountering roads and new situations without their parents right behind them. It’s why August and September tend to see more fox sightings in cities. They’re not lost, just newly independent.

Hedgehog hoglets are doing the same thing. Born in June and July, they’re venturing out alone for the first time this month, navigating urban gardens, fences and roads on their own. They need to reach around 600g before hibernation in October. In a city, that’s genuinely hard, impenetrable fencing, hard baked soil, pesticide use, and a lack of connected green space all make it harder than it should be!

Garden birds are moulting. Replacing worn feathers before winter is exhausting and leaves some temporarily less able to fly. They’re quieter, lower to the ground, and easier to miss. They still need feeding.

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What you can do

Water out and fresh, every day. This matters more in August than almost any other month; juveniles finding their feet, moulting birds, foraging hedgehogs, all of them struggling in the heat.

Leave the wild corners alone. That overgrown patch, the leaf pile, the log stack, resist tidying it until at least October. Urban hedgehogs build their hibernation nests in exactly those spots.

If you see a hedgehog out during daylight, it needs help. Contact your nearest wildlife rescue. A healthy urban hedgehog waits until dark.

And stand outside at dusk for ten minutes. Watch the bats. It’s a good reminder that the city is full of wildlife that most people walk straight past every single day!

What have you been spotting in your outdoor space this August? Tell us in the comments!

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It’s an encouraging message because it proves that successful rewilding isn’t about having a huge garden. Whether you have a back garden, a courtyard, a balcony or a few containers, carefully choosing what you plant can have a surprisingly large impact.

At LettsSafari, we believe this perfectly reflects the future of small-scale rewilding. Thousands of people making small, thoughtful changes can collectively create thriving habitats for wildlife across the UK.

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What Is Keystone Planting?

In nature, some species are disproportionately important. Ecologists call these keystone species because many other plants, insects and animals depend upon them. The same principle applies to gardens.

Certain native plants provide food, shelter and breeding opportunities for far more insects than ornamental alternatives. More insects attract more birds. More birds help control pests and disperse seeds. Before long, your garden becomes part of a much larger ecosystem.

Rather than thinking about individual flowers, keystone planting encourages us to think about the entire food web.

Why Native Plants Matter

Native plants have evolved alongside Britain’s wildlife for thousands of years. That means:

• Pollinators recognise them.

• Caterpillars can feed on them.

• Birds find more insects living on them.

• They are generally better adapted to local conditions.

Many imported ornamental plants are beautiful but provide relatively little food or habitat for wildlife. Replacing just a few of these with native alternatives can significantly increase the biodiversity of your garden.

How to Start Keystone Planting

The beauty of this approach is that you don’t need to redesign your entire garden. Start small.

1. Choose Native Species

Look for plants that naturally occur in the UK.

Popular choices include:

• Hawthorn

• Field maple

• Hazel

• Foxgloves

• Oxeye daisy

• Knapweed

• Wild marjoram

These species support a wide variety of pollinators and insects throughout the growing season.

2. Plant in Groups

Clusters of the same flowers are much easier for bees and butterflies to spot than isolated plants. A group of five or six plants often provides far greater value than scattering individual specimens around the garden.

3. Think Beyond Flowers

Wildlife also needs:

• Shelter

• Nesting places

• Water

• Seed heads

• Leaf litter

Leaving a small patch of your garden a little untidy can often provide more value than another flower bed.

4. Avoid Chemicals

Reducing pesticides allows beneficial insects to flourish. More insects mean more natural pest control and more food for birds. Healthy ecosystems are remarkably good at finding their own balance.

5. Keep Something Flowering

Aim to provide nectar from early spring through to late autumn. A continuous supply of flowers supports pollinators throughout their entire life cycle.

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Small Gardens Can Deliver Big Results

One of the biggest myths about rewilding is that it requires large areas of land. In reality, urban gardens collectively cover hundreds of thousands of hectares across the UK. If each household introduced just a few keystone plants, together they would create an enormous network of connected habitats. Every container, courtyard, balcony and front garden becomes another stepping stone for wildlife.

How LettsSafari Helps

At LettsSafari, we’re passionate about making rewilding practical and accessible. Alongside supporting larger conservation projects, we help people discover simple ways to improve biodiversity where they live. Our guides, ideas and community focus on achievable actions, including:

• Choosing wildlife-friendly plants.

• Creating habitats for pollinators.

• Supporting birds and hedgehogs.

• Reducing lawn space.

• Making better choices for nature every season.

• Because rewilding doesn’t begin in a national park.

It begins at home.

Every Small Action Adds Up

Keystone planting reminds us that success isn’t measured by the size of your garden but by the choices you make within it.

Plant one native shrub.

Add a container full of pollinator-friendly flowers.

Leave a corner wild.

Create a small pond.

Each step helps reconnect wildlife with the places where people live.

Together, millions of small actions can create one of the UK’s largest habitats.

London has always had warm summers, but what's happened this year has been something else. In May, temperatures hit 35.1°C at Kew Gardens, breaking the record for the hottest May day in UK history. July brought another wave, and with it came burst pipes and supply disruptions that left thousands of homes in east and north west London without running water at the height of the heat.

It's a lot. And it's easy, when you're personally struggling through it, to lose sight of the fact that the wildlife around you is going through exactly the same thing, with far fewer options for relief.

35.1°C - UK's hottest ever May day, Kew Gardens, 26 May 2026.

20,000+ - Households across SE England left without water at the peak.

550 - Estimated excess deaths during the May heatwave alone.

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What the heat actually does to urban wildlife

It's worth pausing on this, because it's not dramatic or obvious, it's quiet, gradual, and largely invisible unless you know what to look for.

Birds don't have sweat glands. When it gets this hot, you might notice them sitting with their beaks open, that's panting, their only way of trying to lose heat. They still lose water through their droppings and respiration, and when the puddles and ponds they rely on dry up, there's nowhere for them to rehydrate or keep their feathers in condition.

Bumblebees overheat quickly and struggle to fly far enough to find nectar. Butterfly caterpillars can die during prolonged heat. The soil bakes solid, which means blackbirds and other ground-foraging birds lose access to the worms and insects they feed on. Wild fruits and nuts ripen too early, creating food shortages later in the year just when animals are trying to build up reserves for winter.

Every patch of shade, every dish of water, every overgrown corner becomes genuinely vital when a city gets this hot.

This is the hidden side of a heatwave, the slow disruption running through every food chain, every life cycle, every creature trying to navigate a concrete city with nowhere to cool down.

The good news

Unlike the water infrastructure crisis, or the broader climate picture, this is something we can actually do something about with very little. You don't need a garden. A balcony, a windowsill, a doorstep. Any outdoor space at all.

🌿 SMALL THINGS THAT MAKE A REAL DIFFERENCE

💧Put out a shallow dish of water and refresh it daily. Add a few pebbles or stones so insects and bees can perch safely while they drink, and so hedgehogs and frogs can climb in and out without getting stuck. Ceramic or plastic, not metal, it gets too hot in direct sun.

🌿 Leave things a little wild. Resist the urge to cut everything back right now. Unpruned hedges, leaf piles and log piles create damp, shady pockets that invertebrates rely on in this kind of heat.

🦔 If you have hedgehogs visiting and you're seeing them out during the day, that's a sign they're struggling. Wet cat food and a bowl of water left out in the evening goes a long way. No mealworms though, they do more harm than good!

🐸 Top up any pond you have with stored rainwater where possible. Even a washing-up bowl sunk into the soil counts as a refuge for frogs and newts when natural water sources dry up.

🌸 If you can, plant something nectar-rich in a shadier spot. Bees find it hard to forage when it's this hot, and flowers in partial shade stay cooler and more accessible than those in full sun.

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This is what community rewilding actually looks like

We talk a lot about rewilding at a landscape scale, and that matters enormously. But the truth is, when a heatwave hits a city, the most immediate ecological safety net is the one made up of thousands of individual people making small, quiet choices in their own outdoor spaces.

A dish of water on a doorstep. A balcony left a bit overgrown. A garden corner that doesn't get tidied until September. None of it sounds significant on its own. Collectively, it forms a network of refuge across the city that can genuinely help wildlife survive summers like this one.

Urban nature is resilient, but it needs us to meet it halfway. Especially now.

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The beauty of the idea is that it proves one of the core principles behind LettsSafari: small actions, multiplied by thousands of people, create big environmental change.

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What is a Pollinator Pit Stop?

Think of it as a service station for wildlife.

A pollinator pit stop provides bees, butterflies and other beneficial insects with three essentials:

• Nectar-rich flowers for food

• Fresh water with safe landing places

• A welcoming place to rest before continuing their journey

Experts recommend using a simple planter filled with plants such as lavender, thyme and ivy, alongside a shallow dish of water containing pebbles so insects can drink safely without drowning.

Even the smallest outdoor spaces can become valuable stepping stones connecting wildlife habitats across towns and cities.

Why Small Spaces Matter

Many people assume that helping nature requires acres of countryside.

The reality is almost the opposite.

Modern towns are full of tiny gardens, balconies, courtyards and window boxes. Individually they seem insignificant. Together they form an enormous network of potential habitats.

Every flowering pot:

• feeds hungry pollinators

• supports local biodiversity

• improves urban ecosystems

• makes neighbourhoods greener and healthier

When thousands of people each make one small improvement, the cumulative impact is remarkable.

That’s exactly the philosophy behind LettsSafari.

How to Build Your Own Pollinator Pit Stop

The good news is that you can create one in less than an hour.

Step 1: Choose a Sunny Spot

Most nectar-rich flowers thrive with several hours of sunlight each day. A balcony, doorstep, patio or front garden all work well.

Step 2: Select Pollinator-Friendly Plants

Choose plants that provide nectar throughout the year. Good options include:

• Lavender

• Thyme

• Ivy

• Crocus

• Pulmonaria

• Sedum

• Asters

Aim for plants that flower across different seasons so pollinators always have something available.

Step 3: Add Water

Fill a shallow dish with fresh water. Add pebbles or small stones to create safe landing places for insects. Refresh the water regularly, particularly during hot weather.

Step 4: Avoid Chemicals

Skip pesticides and weedkillers wherever possible. Healthy pollinator habitats depend on healthy insects.

Step 5: Let Nature Do the Rest

Within days you may begin seeing:

• Bumblebees

• Honey bees

• Hoverflies

• Butterflies

• Ladybirds

Your tiny wildlife oasis quickly becomes part of a much larger ecological network.

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Take Your Rewilding One Step Further

Creating a pollinator pit stop is an excellent first step but imagine if every week you made one more small improvement.

That’s exactly what LettsSafari helps you do.

Our members receive practical ideas for creating more wildlife-friendly spaces at home, regardless of the size of their garden. Simple projects might include:

• planting for pollinators

• creating bird-friendly habitats

• providing food and shelter for hedgehogs

• encouraging beneficial insects

• improving biodiversity throughout the seasons

No complicated gardening knowledge required. Just small, achievable actions that make a genuine difference.

Small Actions Create Big Impact

One pollinator pit stop won’t solve biodiversity loss, neither will one wildflower patch. But millions of small wildlife-friendly spaces, created by ordinary people, can transform our towns and cities into thriving ecosystems. That’s why LettsSafari exists.

Together, we can make rewilding something everyone can take part in—one garden, one balcony and one pollinator pit stop at a time.

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Butterflies are more than just a sign that summer has arrived. They’re important pollinators and a good indicator of the health of our environment. When butterfly numbers decline, it’s often a sign that the habitats they rely on are under pressure too.

The great thing about the Big Butterfly Count is that you don’t have to travel far to get involved. Whether you’re in a local park, a community garden, your own garden or simply walking around your neighbourhood, you might be surprised by how many butterflies you can spot once you start looking.

It’s also a reminder that urban nature matters. Wildflower patches, roadside verges, churchyards and community gardens all provide important habitats for butterflies and other pollinators. While these spaces may seem small on their own, together they create a network of green spaces that help wildlife move through our towns and cities.

Taking part is simple, but the information collected helps build a better understanding of how butterfly populations are changing across the UK. Every count adds to a much bigger picture and helps inform future conservation work.

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We’re passionate about helping people connect with nature in their everyday lives, and the Big Butterfly Count is a great example of how small actions can have a real impact!

So this week, why not spend 15 minutes outdoors? Visit your local park, community garden or green space, slow down for a moment and see what you can find.

You might discover that there’s far more wildlife on your doorstep than you realised!

At LettsSafari, we believe every garden can become part of something bigger. Small actions, repeated by thousands of people, have the power to reconnect nature across our towns and cities. Here’s how you can start creating your own bird-friendly garden today.

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Why Birds Need Our Help

Many familiar garden birds are facing increasing pressure from habitat loss, changing land use and a decline in natural food sources. Urban gardens have become increasingly important stepping stones, allowing birds to find food, shelter and safe places to breed.

The good news is that wildlife doesn’t expect perfection. Birds are remarkably quick to discover gardens that provide what they need.

Step 1: Plant for Food Throughout the Year

Bird feeders are helpful, but natural food sources provide much greater value.

Choose plants that produce:

• Berries in autumn and winter

• Nectar-rich flowers for insects during spring and summer

• Seed heads that remain through autumn

• Native shrubs that support caterpillars and other insects

Native species such as hawthorn, blackthorn, rowan and holly provide excellent seasonal food while supporting hundreds of native insect species.

LettsSafari Tip

Aim to have something flowering, fruiting or seeding during every season. A garden that offers year-round food becomes far more valuable for wildlife.

Step 2: Create Layers of Habitat

Birds use different parts of a garden for different purposes.

Think in layers:

• Trees for nesting and singing posts

• Shrubs for shelter

• Long grass for insects

• Wildflowers for pollinators

• Ground cover where insects can thrive

Even in small gardens, varying plant height creates more opportunities for wildlife.

Step 3: Add Water

Fresh water is essential for drinking and bathing.

You don’t need a large pond.

Simple options include:

• A shallow bird bath

• A small container pond

• A water dish refreshed daily

Adding stones or gently sloping edges makes water accessible for insects as well as birds.

Step 4: Let Nature Be a Little Messy

The perfect garden isn’t always the best garden for wildlife.

Leave:

• Seed heads over winter

• Small piles of leaves

• Dead wood in quiet corners

• Longer patches of grass

• Areas where wildflowers can self-seed

These features become homes for insects, which in turn provide food for birds.

Think of your garden as a living ecosystem rather than an outdoor showroom.

Step 5: Avoid Harmful Chemicals

Reducing pesticides is one of the biggest positive changes you can make. Healthy gardens naturally develop a balance between predators and pests. Ladybirds, lacewings, frogs and birds all help keep populations under control. The more diverse your planting, the more resilient your garden becomes.

Every Garden Counts

One wildlife-friendly garden is wonderful. Hundreds connected across a neighbourhood are transformational. Birds, bees, butterflies and hedgehogs don’t recognise property boundaries. They simply need a network of safe places where they can feed, rest and breed. That’s exactly why smaller-scale rewilding matters.

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How LettsSafari Helps You Rewild at Home

Creating a wildlife-friendly garden is just the beginning. LettsSafari helps people take practical action by making rewilding simple, rewarding and accessible.

As a subscriber you’ll discover practical ideas for supporting wildlife in gardens, balconies and community spaces while helping fund larger rewilding projects across the UK. Every subscription contributes to measurable environmental impact:

• Every 10 subscribers help fund the planting of one tree each year.

• Every 100 subscribers help support the reintroduction of native wildlife.

• As the community grows, together we help create new spaces where nature can flourish.

• The beauty of rewilding is that it doesn’t require perfection. It simply starts with one small change, repeated by thousands of people.

Start This Weekend

If you’re wondering where to begin, keep it simple.

This weekend:

• Plant one native shrub.

• Leave one patch of grass to grow naturally.

• Add a shallow source of water.

• Skip the pesticides.

• Observe which birds visit your garden.

Small improvements quickly become lasting habitats.

Nature responds surprisingly fast when we make room for it.

But spend a little longer walking around the city and something else becomes noticeable: nature is never very far away.

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Prague offers an interesting example of how green and blue spaces can become part of the everyday fabric of a city. Rather than nature existing only in designated parks or on the outskirts, trees, gardens, riverbanks and hillside landscapes weave their way through the urban environment.

For anyone interested in urban rewilding, there are lessons here. Prague shows how even a busy, historic European capital can make space for nature alongside the needs of residents, businesses and millions of visitors.

The Vltava: A Blue-Green Corridor Through the City

The Vltava River is one of Prague’s defining features.

It runs directly through the heart of the city, passing some of its most famous landmarks and dividing neighbourhoods that are connected by a series of bridges. But the river is much more than a scenic backdrop.

Along significant stretches of the Vltava, the river creates valuable open space.

People walk, run and cycle beside the water. Others simply sit on the banks or stop to enjoy the view. Trees and grassy areas soften the edges between the built environment and the river, while riverside paths provide an alternative to navigating the city’s busier streets.

From an urban nature perspective, rivers can play an enormously important role.

They create natural corridors through otherwise densely developed landscapes. Riverbanks and connected green spaces can provide habitats and movement routes for birds, insects and other wildlife, while also helping people feel more connected to the natural environment.

There is something psychologically different about walking beside water, too. The city suddenly feels less enclosed. The skyline opens up, traffic feels more distant and the pace of life seems to slow.

In Prague, the Vltava demonstrates the potential of “blue infrastructure” — using rivers, canals, ponds and other bodies of water as an integral part of how cities function and how people experience them.

A City Shaped by Hills

Prague’s geography also contributes to its distinctive relationship with nature.

Unlike flatter cities, Prague’s hills create different layers of green space. Parks, gardens and wooded areas often sit above the city, providing walking routes, shade and spectacular views across the rooftops and river.

The change in elevation also creates variety.

One moment you can be walking through busy historic streets surrounded by buildings, cafés and tourists. Not long afterwards, you can find yourself climbing through a park or garden where the sounds of the city begin to fade.

These spaces provide something that urban nature does particularly well: contrast.

Nature does not have to dominate a city to have an impact. Sometimes its greatest value comes from creating small moments of escape — a shaded path, a group of mature trees, a patch of grass or a viewpoint surrounded by vegetation.

These moments give people somewhere to pause and provide wildlife with small pockets of habitat.

Nature Along the Everyday Route

One thing I have noticed while spending time in Central and Eastern European cities is that there often seems to be a stronger presence of urban nature in everyday surroundings.

This is not necessarily about having more spectacular parks.

Instead, greenery often feels more closely integrated into ordinary streets, residential areas and public spaces.

Prague reflects this well.

Trees appear between historic buildings. Planted areas soften roads and squares. Green spaces sit alongside transport routes. The river creates a continuous natural feature through the centre of the city.

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The result is that nature does not always feel like somewhere you have to make a special journey to visit.

It is simply there.

You encounter it while walking to a restaurant, crossing the city, travelling to work or exploring a neighbourhood.

This is an important principle for urban rewilding.

Large parks and nature reserves are incredibly valuable, but the future of urban biodiversity cannot depend entirely on isolated green spaces. Cities also need networks of smaller habitats that connect those larger areas.

A street tree. A planted verge. A green courtyard. A pocket park. A balcony filled with pollinator-friendly plants. A riverbank allowed to grow a little wilder.

Individually, these spaces may seem insignificant. Together, they can begin to form a living network through the city.

Prague and London: Two Different Experiences of Urban Greenery

London is, of course, an exceptionally green city in many respects. Its large parks, commons, wetlands and nature reserves provide important habitats and give millions of people access to nature.

But the experience of greenery can sometimes feel different.

In parts of London, green space can feel concentrated in particular destinations. You walk through dense streets and then arrive at a park, common or garden.

In Prague, by contrast, greenery can often feel more present along the journey itself.

This is not a scientific comparison of the amount of green space in each city. It is simply an observation about how urban nature is experienced when moving through them.

And that distinction is interesting.

Perhaps the goal for greener cities should not simply be to create more parks. It should also be to make nature more visible and accessible throughout everyday life.

Imagine if every walk to the shops passed more trees.

If every residential street contained small areas planted for pollinators.

If balconies, rooftops and courtyards became miniature habitats.

If rivers and canals were treated as wildlife corridors as well as recreational spaces.

If the gaps between our major parks became greener and more connected.

That is where small-scale urban rewilding becomes particularly powerful.

What Can We Learn from Prague?

Prague is not a wilderness, nor is it trying to be. It is a busy European capital with roads, buildings, tourism and all the pressures that come with urban life. But it demonstrates how nature can coexist with those things.

The lesson is not that every city should try to copy Prague. Every city has its own geography, history and environmental challenges. The broader lesson is that urban nature works best when it becomes part of the infrastructure of everyday life.

Rivers can become ecological corridors.

Streets can become greener.

Small spaces can become habitats.

Parks can connect with surrounding neighbourhoods.

Gardens, balconies and courtyards can become stepping stones for wildlife.

And collectively, these small interventions can make cities feel very different.

And perhaps the most important lesson from Prague is a simple one: urban nature is at its most powerful when you don’t have to go looking for it.

Garden rewilding is a journey. We’re excited to share our journey with you through “The Nature Reserve Next Door: How to Turn Any Garden Into a Wildlife Sanctuary”.

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5.1 Small Urban Garden Build

A typical small urban garden in Britain, the terraced or semi-detached plot of 50–120 m², presents specific challenges which often include: high neighbour visibility, compact heavy soils, limited tree height due to light constraints and legal restrictions. On top of this many face a persistent cat pressure, and often limited sunlight.

But it also presents enormous opportunities: urban gardens aggregate into vast networks, and a small rewilded plot in a terrace is visible to more people, and therefore more culturally influential than the same area in a rural setting. It’s well worth the effort.

A Rewilded Kit That Fits a Small Urban Garden

• Mini-meadow strip (4–8 m²) with a mown path edge creating a clear ‘orderly frame’

• One dense shrub thicket of 2–4 m length along the rear or side boundary — hawthorn, blackthorn, and dog rose for UK; serviceberry and arrowwood viburnum for NE N. America

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• One or two small trees appropriate to the plot — crab apple, rowan, or field maple in UK; Eastern redbud or pagoda dogwood in NE N. America

• One wildlife pond (minimum 1.5 × 1 m) or container pond if digging is impossible

• One log pile or wildlife brush dome positioned at the base of the scrub zone

• One pollinator bed (2–4 m²) near the seating area — the ‘front-of-stage’ feature

Build in Six Weekends

• Weekend One: mark all habitat zones; remove a narrow turf strip for the meadow patch; begin the ‘no mow’ regime in selected lawn areas

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It’s encouraging news. But perhaps the most important lesson isn’t the size of the investment - it’s how nature recovers.

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Wildlife doesn’t only thrive in national parks and nature reserves. It needs thousands of connected habitats, many of them surprisingly small. Gardens, balconies, school grounds, community spaces and business parks all have a role to play.

That’s exactly where LettsSafari comes in.

Why Small Spaces Matter

When people think about rewilding, they often picture hundreds of acres of countryside.

In reality, many species depend on networks of smaller habitats connected together. A pollinator visiting flowers in your garden today may visit a nearby park tomorrow before travelling to a local nature reserve. Birds, hedgehogs, bees and butterflies all benefit from these stepping stones.

One wildlife-friendly garden won’t change the country.

Ten thousand will.

What This Means for You

The Government’s investment shows that restoring nature is now a national priority. But you don’t need government funding to make a difference.

Here are six practical ways to begin rewilding your own space today.

1. Plant Native Species

Native wildflowers, shrubs and trees have evolved alongside British wildlife. Choose plants that provide nectar from early spring through to late autumn so pollinators always have something to feed on.

2. Create Layers of Habitat

Nature loves variety. Instead of keeping everything neat and flat, introduce different heights:

• Wildflowers

• Grasses

• Shrubs

• Small trees

• Climbers

• Containers with varied planting

Different species use different layers for food, shelter and nesting.

3. Leave Some Areas Untidy

A perfectly tidy garden isn’t always great for wildlife. Consider leaving:

• Seed heads over winter

• Small log piles

• Leaf litter

• Longer patches of grass

• Dead wood where it’s safe

These become homes for insects, fungi and small mammals that support the wider ecosystem.

4. Add Water

Even a shallow bowl of clean water can attract birds, bees and beneficial insects. If you have room, a small wildlife pond quickly becomes one of the most valuable habitats in any garden.

5. Reduce Chemicals

Every reduction in pesticides and herbicides helps create healthier food chains. Natural pest control often follows once birds, frogs, ladybirds and other beneficial species begin returning.

6. Join a Bigger Movement

The Government’s programme succeeds because hundreds of organisations are working towards one goal. The same principle applies locally.

By joining LettsSafari, your subscription helps support real rewilding projects while giving you ideas, inspiration and practical guidance to make your own outdoor space more wildlife-friendly. Together, thousands of small actions become something much bigger.

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How LettsSafari Helps

At LettsSafari, we believe rewilding should be accessible to everyone—not just landowners with acres to spare. Whether you have:

• A balcony

• A courtyard

• A small back garden

• An allotment

• A school garden

• A shared community space

You can make a meaningful contribution to nature recovery. Our community shares practical ideas that are simple to implement, affordable and enjoyable, while every subscription also contributes towards larger rewilding initiatives. It’s a way to create immediate impact close to home while supporting longer-term habitat restoration across the UK.

Every Wildlife-Friendly Garden Counts

The Government’s new investment is an important milestone for nature recovery in England. But restoring wildlife won’t be achieved by a handful of major projects alone. It will happen because millions of people decide to leave a corner of grass to grow, plant flowers for pollinators, provide water for birds or create shelter for insects.

Nature doesn’t ask for perfection.

It simply needs more places to thrive.

Start with your own space, however small, and become part of a growing movement that’s helping Britain become wilder, one garden at a time.