Sheena Patterson of Oxford Garden Design makes a plea for a gardener’s pal

As many of us are going to set off to burn effigies of Guy Fawkes on bonfires this weekend, I’m going to make a plea for a special little spiky gardener’s friend – the humble hedgehog.

If you have a hedgehog in your garden it should be encouraged because a large part of their diet consists of the gardener’s loathed enemy – the slimy slug.

The trouble this time of year, is that many of our prickly allies take refuge in the bonfires that are about to be lit: a dangerous place of hibernation that some hedgehogs choose for their winter staycation.

In 1605, when the real Guy Fawkes was planning to assassinate King James I, hedgehogs were considered pests with a high price on their heads.

Even up to the last century, they were killed on sight. It was believed they ate eggs (which is occasionally true) and attacked chickens (which is false). The most serious allegation against them was that they milked cows, which is also false. Probably the most outrageous allegation was that they had two anal passages, down to the slightly odd shape of the hedgehog’s stool.

In these enlightened times we know that the hedgehog has only one anus. Instead they have become the butt of many jokes.

Recently the funniest one-liner at the Edinburgh Fringe was voted to be “Hedgehogs. Why can’t they just share the hedge?”

In my mis-spent youth I recall jolly trips to the pub ordering two pints of lager and a packet of crisps while Splodgenessabounds rang out on the jukebox (check them out on YouTube if you don’t remember them.) And the flavour of crisps? Well, hedgehog, of course. In 1981 Hedgehog Foods Ltd decided, as a joke, to produce hedgehog flavoured crisps. As they were actually flavoured with pork fat, it wasn’t long before Hedgehog Foods met the Office of Fair Trading in Court on a charge of false advertising. In a bizarre twist, a settlement was reached when the company recruited gypsies, who actually ate baked hedgehogs, to recreate the flavour as closely as possible.

Labels were changed from “hedgehog flavoured” to “hedgehog flavour” and business resumed as normal.

As a gardener, I would encourage everyone to attract hedgehogs into the garden, especially if you are gardening organically.

While not the best pets for a cuddle (apart from the prickles, they are flea-infested and can carry a bacteria responsible for food poisoning) they make good garden pets because of their pest-destroying activity. They devour beetles, slugs, cutworms and caterpillars and can even kill an adder.

I was once asked to design a garden to encourage hedgehogs to stay and this is entirely possible. In the summer months put out a saucer of water or some tinned pet food (not bread and milk) in the evening for your spiky friend and they’ll soon get the point. However, at this time of year they are looking for somewhere to snooze under a pile of leaves or a hedge, where they will stay, hardly breathing, until March or April.

So if you want your garden to act as a hostel for them, don’t be too tidy with the leaves and, unless you want them baked, don’t have a bonfire, or check it carefully, before setting it alight.

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