Open for guests
I spent last weekend building a hedgehog hotel for my back garden. For anyone else with rudimentary DIY skills, it would probably have taken a lot less time. I used timber recycled from a couple of other projects – containers for summer flowers, a bird feeder (which was itself another home project) and some leftover roof tiles from a building project on our family farm in Rahugh.
Leftovers – since I had to abandon my bird-feeding station, I reused the wood as an inner ceiling on the hedgehog hotel.
I’d gathered a couple of sacks of leaves a week earlier so they were nice and dry (and had a wonderful scent) and used some of them to line the floor of the ‘hotel’. The rest were scattered around the outside, so that the hedgehog can bring them in to add to the bedding itself. It’s basically a hedgehog airbnb – complete with bedding. Now all I need is a lodger.
I did have a visitor snuffling around last night but no sign of a booking yet.
To be honest, there is a good chance that the local hedgehogs will pass on using the box in my garden. On the other end of our street is a small apartment block with a large tree-lined lawn at the back. Nobody uses the lawn, so it’s quiet, and on each corner is a huge pile of leaves, sheltered by overhanging trees and border plants. I suspect that’s where my hedgehog visitors are living – it’s an ideal spot for them.