1. The most important consideration is to refrain from using any commercial pesticides. Research environmentally friendly ways of deterring those critters that eat your plants but do remember that they are the food for the birds that you want to entice into your space.
  2. Create an exclusion area where you spend little time and allow nature to take its course. Do leave a log to decay and provide insect food. If you position this area so that it is visible from your patio you will have a bird’s eye view of the visitors to your garden.
  3. Put up bird feeders, nesting logs, ‘bat hotels’ and owl boxes. Insect hotels are fun to build using planks and sticks which entice insects as they break down.
  4. Plant a tree, like an Acacia for the nesting birds, wild grasses like Aristida junciformis for the seed eaters, nectar producing trees like Halleria lucida and fruiting trees like Olea africana for all the fruit eaters. Research host plants for butterflies and moths.
  5. Water is essential for drinking and bathing. It shouldn’t be deep. Our guinea fowl and chickens love to sand-bath, so leave a patch of bare earth. Sit back and you will be enchanted to see what visits your garden.