our hedgehog hill

While making the butterfly mandala, we created a huge pile of grass sods. What to do with all of those sods? The kids opted for a little hill to bike over and to use it as a slope to sledge on in winter time. While we started piling up the pieces of grass, I got the last minute idea to make a hedgehog shelter inside the little hill.

drainage and dried leaves inserted in the flower pot

In the shed, we found a large damaged terracotta  flower pot and made an entrance big enough for a hedgehog. Inside the upside down pot, I added some gravel and odd stones to provide for drainage. On top of it, I piled up some cozy dried leaves. With the help of my son, we designed an entrance tunnel out of plastic left over flower pots strong enough to hold the weight on top.  Fortified with half circle shaped beams and with branches and a couple of tests, we were satisfied.

Fortified tunnel and then some branches in the length on top

The entrance was turned towards the east to avoid rain and wind. Then we added more sods until we had a little hill. The last layer of sods, were turned with the grass side up. We hope the hibernating hedgehogs will not mind some small and bigger kids to bike and sledge over their heads once in a while...

Our hedgehog hill

Finally, I made some holes at the bottom of the iron fence surrounding our garden to provide many little gates for our slug and snail lovers. Welcome hedgehogs!