On your street: What can you find in your garden? The results are in!
Between June and October 2024, over 750 Wandsworth residents took part in Wandsworth’s borough-wide garden biodiversity survey: On Your Street. By sharing details about the food, shelter, water, and connectivity your gardens provide, residents have helped build a picture of how private gardens support local wildlife. Now the results are live!
An interactive map, developed by Enable in partnership with Greenspace Information for Greater London CIC (GiGL), brings this data to life. Explore garden features, species records, and find biodiversity corridors across Wandsworth. See how your contributions form the bigger picture of a greener borough. Explore the interactive map here.
If you need help using the map, there are tutorials here.
The survey asked respondents how often they had seen priority species in their gardens over the past five years. These priority species are identified in Wandsworth’s Biodiversity Strategy. While there is plenty of data on species records across Wandsworth’s greenspaces, information from private gardens is much more limited. The On Your Street survey is designed to target that.
Results:
The interactive map shows most hedgehog sightings were reported in the Putney area. National urban hedgehog populations appear stable, highlighting that gardens are crucial habitats. Garden features that support hedgehogs include gaps in fences, mixed native hedges and log piles.
Stag beetle sightings were more widely reported across the borough. Deadwood is crucial for their survival, yet only about 40% of respondents reported that they had deadwood or log piles in their gardens. London, in particular south London, is a hotspot for this nationally significant species.
Starling sightings were reported as occurring ‘regularly’ or ‘a few times a year’ across Wandsworth gardens, though many respondents said they ‘never’ see starlings. In the RSPB’s 2025 Big Garden Bird Watch, starlings fell from the 3rd most recorded garden bird to the 4th, their lowest count since the 1970s. Like many birds, starlings rely on healthy invertebrate populations, supported by nectar rich flowers, long grass, uncut seed heads and stems in winter.
Nectar provision is important for supporting invertebrates throughout spring, summer, and autumn. 81% of respondents provide one or more food features, with early spring flowers being the most common. 70% of respondents said they have at least one feature to improve connectivity for wildlife. The most common was rows of trees or shrubs connecting gardens, followed by gaps in fences to allow wildlife to pass through. Connectivity is important in fragmented urban areas, where roads, buildings and walls disrupt natural habitats that wildlife rely on.
Other species that respondents recorded as visiting their gardens throughout the year; the larger the word, the more times it was mentioned.
This survey is a major step in recognising the importance of private gardens in Wandsworth and your input has made this happen. If you didn’t have a chance to complete the survey last year, it’s not too late to get involved. The survey has reopened for one more month closing at midnight on Sunday 15th June. Fill out the survey here.
For more information, or if you have any questions, please contact biodiversity@enablelc.org.