Turning your garden into a happy haven for wildlife helps the environment, provides hours of fun for children, educates them about nature – and makes it aesthetically appealing. Here are top tips for attracting insects and animals into your garden

to encourage all manner of creatures to your garden.5. Plant flowers to attract bees and butterflies Lavender, thyme, buddleia and sedum all encourage pollination.6. Leave out hedgehog and badger food Buy some special food from your local pet shop – bread

Composting is a great activity for children, enabling them to see the entire cycle of how scraps from the kitchen can be turned into a useful product to nourish the garden. To get started you will need to palce a compost bin on a well-drained, level

Follow our simple guide and and you’ll soon have lots of lovely nourishing compost for your garden:Step oneFind a container – a kitchen bin is good – and drill holes in the bottom and the lid. Step twoLine the bottom with fine nylon mesh

:Meats:Beef, Chicken, PorkDairy:Milk, Cheese, ButterFruit and Vegetables:Apples, Pears, Strawberries, Raspberries, Cherries, Tomatoes, Peaches, Nectarines, Apricots, Grapes, Celery, Potatoes, SpinachMore green living from Junior:Growing vegetables with your childHow to grow a wild flower garden

and fascination for inquisitive young minds. At home young children will watch with delight as a Blackbird slurps wriggly worms from the garden lawn and feel a sense of warming pride as a miniature House Sparrow pecks seeds from a homemade feeder.Whilst bird

and the importance of the agriculture industry.2. Many children find it difficult to reconcile the idea that the food on their plate comes from the ground or a tree. Nurture your child’s green fingers by dedicating an area of your garden (or a windowsill) to growing

.6.    Want to do wonders for your garden? Then don’t throw away all the food scraps in the bin. Use them to create a compost heap instead.7.    Gift buying can be a tricky business, but just remember one person’s junk is another person’s treasure, so

big queen bee, your child need not need to venture far to spot nature. She can just go searching in the back garden. For fun activities to accompany a nature hunt, visit www.naturedetectives.org.uk

willows to make a new hedge, but planting is one of the most important things that you can do in your garden.Trees provide shelter and food for animals, absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and improve the soil underneath them.Make green gifts. We all