A KEEN gardener from St Martins is urging people to create safe havens for wildlife in their gardens.

Bryan Swain, 75, believes that even people with small gardens should be able to accommodate wildlife easily.

He is concerned about wildflowers being placed alongside busy roads and urges other locals to plant more wildlife-friendly flowers in their gardens.

"Those bees will end up on somebody's windscreen if they try to fly across the road to the wild hedgerows," Mr Swain said.

Mr Swain, who prides himself on his garden, has created a wildlife paradise with perennial flowers there to be lived in all-year-round.

"I don't weed the garden, I just leave it to be wild and natural.

"I don't use any sprays or anything, I'm very keen on natural gardening methods," he said.

Continuing with the natural side of gardening, Mr Swain has two 500 gallon water tanks in his garden which collect rain water off the roof of his house to be used to water all flowers and attend to the wildlife.

"I have had a pond purposely built for me, it has a box underneath for the bees, there are six types of bee in my garden.

"I also have a hedgehog retreat, a pond full of tadpoles – I have never seen so many tadpoles – wasps nests, and a butterfly area.

"The butterflies like to stay in one plant, which I like to say looks like a sea of blue," he added.

Gardening has always been Mr Swain's life and he claims to spend every minute on his feet, in his garden.

"Wildlife is important, without it the world wouldn't exist"