Gardenwatch

Citizen science in the UK's biggest nature reserve: our gardens. Gardenwatch helped us understand how gardens can help our wildlife thrive.

Gardenwatch was a collaborative project between BTO and the Springwatch team that ran during BBC Springwatch 2019. We asked you to tell us about your garden and its wildlife so we could build a comprehensive picture of how gardens can help UK wildlife species to thrive in the future.

Together, the UK’s gardens cover a larger area than Suffolk and so arguably form our most important nature reserve. As towns and cities become more densely populated and expand into the wider countryside, gardens are becoming an increasingly vital refuge for wildlife. But which birds, mammals, invertebrates and other wildlife do we share our gardens with, and why? And more importantly, what can we do to help support them?

We carried out the UK’s biggest ever garden audit, building a picture of the resources available for wildlife in gardens up and down the country, and surveying some of the wild visitors they attract.

View the findings from Gardenwatch below.