Keen gardener and wildlife lover Louise Vergette is used to all kinds of visitors to her backyard in Bristol. Foxes, frogs and hedgehogs, plus an abundance of birds and bees, have all at one time made her pretty inner city garden their home. Even still, the artist and sculptor could never have imagined that footage of her garden would one day feature in the narration of the ultimate wildlife lover – Sir David Attenborough himself.
Britain’s best loved naturalist and broadcaster, who turns 100 next month, has travelled the globe extensively in search of exotic animals and plants. But in celebration of his milestone birthday, he has turned his attention closer to home by exploring the spaces beyond our doorsteps for a new five-part BBC series called Secret Garden – co-produced by the National Trust and the Open University – airing Easter Sunday.
Louise who lives with wildlife cameraman John Waters, was lucky to play host to the show’s experts as they explored the animal life that lives just metres from her back door. “I felt so honoured and privileged that my very ordinary garden was chosen to feature in David Attenborough’s programme,” she says. “It is just a small city garden, one in a row, but it shows just how much wildlife lives in it. It was a wonderful experience to help uncover the rich and surprising wildlife living alongside us.”
Louise Vergette tends her plot in Attenborough’s Secret Garden series (Image: BBC/Plimsoll Productions) This article contains affiliate links, we will receive a commission on any sales we generate from it. Learn more
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Wildlife cameraman George Woodcock readies Louise’s back garden for filming (Image: BBC/Plimsoll Productions)
The 68-year-old admits she’s not necessarily the most green-fingered person in the world. “I would not call myself a gardener really because I don’t know much about plants but I do love spending time in my garden and looking out for wildlife,” she enthuses. “I go out with my torch at all hours hoping to see something.”
Many Britons would agree with this sentiment. Collectively, the nation’s 20.6 million gardens cover an area greater than the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales national parks combined. And it transpires these domestic flowerbeds, vegetable patches, lawns and ponds are home to thousands of animal and plant species – many rarely seen, and most barely understood.
As Sir David says in his introduction to the series: “Across the British Isles, there are magical places that are our pride and joy, our gardens. Yet many of us are completely unaware of the wild world right under our noses. “Amazingly some British gardens are almost as diverse as a tropical rainforest and when our backs are turned they come alive.”
Louise does her bit to encourage as much wildlife as possible into her garden. She has installed at least six nesting boxes which house great tits and blue tits, and dug out a pond which is home to frogs and newts. She and her neighbours have also created a so-called “hedgehog highway” through their gardens.
“Because my garden walls are brick we had to cut a hole through so that hedgehogs can get through and our neighbours have done the same,” she explains.
The Secret Garden cameramen track Louise’s hedgehog as she makes her way through 16 gardens in one single evening on the look out for a mate. The spiny mammal’s perseverance pays off – she mates with three males and eventually produces a healthy litter of hoglets several weeks later.
It’s unlikely this would have happened if the female hedgehog had remained in Louise’s garden alone, and sadly the dwindling numbers of hedgehogs reflect that picture. While an estimated 30 million hedgehogs once bustled through Britain’s gardens and hedgerows, today fewer than one around million are alive. An estimated 150,000 to 300,000 hedgehogs are killed on UK roads each year, so it’s vital for them to have safe access to back gardens.
One of the baby fox cubs living under a shed in a Bristol back garden (Image: BBC/Plimsoll Productions)
Louise also enjoys regular visits from a fox whose territory encompasses an incredible 100 gardens. He lives under a shed in one of her neighbour’s gardens as one of 2,000 foxes living in her home city.
And while many see the urban fox as a menace, the programme reveals how it is the pet cat that is really the garden delinquent. There are around 11 million pet cats nationwide and it is estimated that they manage to kill over 50 million birds every year.
Mr Fluffy, a neighbourhood cat who frequents Louise’s garden and is forever on the hunt for fledglings, is fitted with a bell on his collar. Statistically speaking, putting a bell on a cat’s collar cuts their hunting success rate by a third. “It is also advisable to keep them in between dusk and dawn as these are the times they mostly hunt,” Louise advises.
Elsewhere, Secret Garden viewers will be transported into several other gardens around the UK too, including a river garden that is home to an incredibly shy otter spotted only twice by the property’s owners in their 30 years living there.
Thankfully an intrepid BBC cameraman who erects a tent hide in the river and sits partly submerged in the water for several days, ending up wet and cold, manages to finally film one for viewers to enjoy. “I had no idea until I invited them in, how long it can take to film wildlife, and how incredibly patient the team had to be,” admits Louise.
Thankfully most of the wildlife in Secret Garden is much easier to spot than an elusive otter. “It is just really a case of making them welcome,” Louise adds. “It’s about making sure there are places for them to live, and food to eat – and you will be surprised at how quickly they turn up.”
Her well stocked and varied flower borders are frequently visited by buzzing bees and insects. But this doesn’t mirror the national picture as the number of insects in Britain has fallen by 60% in the last 20 years, leaving many wild animals without a reliable food source.
A blue tit looks out from one of Louise’s nesting boxes, nailed up high away from cats (Image: BBC/Plimsoll Productions)
A female hedgehog enters a ‘hedgehog highway’ through a garden wall (Image: BBC/Plimsoll Productions)
Rebecca Bevan, the National Trust’s environmental horticulture expert and author of The National Trust Book of Nature Friendly Gardening, hopes the series will inspire Britain’s gardeners to leave their gardens “a little looser and a little wilder”, like Louise has done.
“Our gardens really do have a meaningful role to play in supporting wildlife,” she says. “In total they make up about over half a million hectares – that is bigger than the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales combined. They also take up 29% of urban space so if we are serious about supporting nature in our cities then our gardens are a really vital part of that.”
The National Trust is keen to inspire people around the UK to think about their gardens in new ways.
“As well as places for us to enjoy a summer bbq, play and relax, our gardens have huge potential to support an array of creatures, from newts and hedgehogs to foxes and birds of all kinds,” says Rebecca. “Our gardens aren’t just pretty, they’re powerful.”She hopes the series also inspires people to think about what products they use in order to let wildlife thrive.
“If people only do one thing I would say, ‘please do not use bug spray or slug pellets’,” she says. “You are destroying food for insects and birds and interrupting the eco-system.”
But even environmentally conscious Louise has some sympathy with the British gardener’s eternal war on slugs and snails.
“I am in a constant battle with slugs and snails but I would never use pellets or bug spray,” she says. “The frogs do eat some of them, which is good, and I have been known on occasion to use a beer trap.”
So what’s the secret? “You put a small amount of beer in a little dish or tray and then at least you know they died happy,” she laughs. “I don’t do it very often though. After all, its a waste of beer!”
Secret Garden airs on April 5 on BBC One, with all episodes available to watch on BBC iPlayer.