Building a garden from the ground up (insects to mammals)

Start by finding out what your soil is and what the local nature reserves are important for so that you can provide food and habitats for species that occur locally. Introduce supportive habitats - a pond, even a tiny one, is probably the most important, but areas of sun, shade, shelter, are all good, so some changes in soil level - a little bank maybe, and a small wall built of a local traditional material. Somewhere in addition to the pond where you can provide birds with water is also good, even more than feeding them. Hedges are always good, and cotoneaster has nectar rich flowers and edible berries - maybe see can you add in a small tree to provide a song perch. In Ireland I'd always recommend a hawthorn, but that might not be the best choice where you are.

You also need to make space for human needs in a garden - grow herbs (usually good for pollinators), maybe vegetables, some flowers, space for adults or children to chill and play. There's lots of stuff out there on biodiversity gardens, some of it prepared by natural history museums, so read around that.

It sounds a brilliant place already, and if you're planning to enhance it it should be amazing.

You don't have to limit yourself to native plants - garden flowers with an extended season can be good for insects - so snowdrops and early crocuses in the grass as well as primroses. In my own garden at the moment the forget-me-not seeds are attracting a flock of goldfinches, and the chives flowers are full of bumblebees (at least three species), hoverflies and tiny wasps. Your cotoneaster berries will be good in autumn, and ivy has flowers in November and berries all winter, and provides shelter for all sorts of creatures.

A few handful of sunflower seeds (the ones they sell as birdseed) planted now might still have time to grow to full height by late summer - they're a great attraction for bees, and you can leave the seedheads out for the birds later.