A habitat worth making

Dead wood is one of the scarcest habitats in the British countryside, and one of the easiest to recreate. Tidy gardens, flailed hedgerows and the habit of clearing fallen branches have stripped much of it out of the landscape, yet a simple log pile can restore a surprising amount of that richness in a corner no bigger than a dining table. Mouldering timber is food and shelter for beetles, fungi, mosses, woodlice and centipedes, and in the right place it becomes a cool, damp refuge for frogs, toads and newts. Best of all, it is built from material you would otherwise have to dispose of.

The key is to think of a log pile not as a heap of waste but as slow-motion habitat. Wood that stays damp and shaded takes years to break down, and every stage of that decay supports a different cast of characters.

Choosing the right spot

Position is everything. Damp, dappled shade is the goal, so a north- or east-facing corner against a fence, beneath a shrub, or along the edge of a hedge works beautifully. A pile in full sun will dry out and lose much of its value, however neat it looks.

A few practical points to weigh up before you start stacking:

• Keep it at least a metre clear of house walls, sheds and conservatories, where constant damp could cause problems.
• Avoid sitting the pile directly beneath a tree you treasure. Rotting wood can harbour honey fungus, which may spread to nearby susceptible trees.
• A spot within a few metres of a pond or a boggy patch is ideal for amphibians, but the logs themselves should sit on well-drained ground rather than in standing water.
• Level, undisturbed ground is best. Once built, a good log pile should not need moving.

What wood to use

Native broadleaved timber is the gold standard: oak, beech, ash, hazel, birch, apple and cherry are all excellent. Hardwoods such as oak rot slowly and last for many years, while softer woods such as birch and willow break down faster and suit fungi and insects that prefer quicker rewards. A mix of both is ideal.

Size matters. Logs of roughly 10–30cm in diameter and 30–100cm long are easy to handle and create useful voids. Avoid anything that has been treated, painted, varnished or glued, and steer clear of plywood, MDF and tanalised timber, which offer little to wildlife and may leach chemicals. Conifer logs are fine, though they tend to be more acidic and slower to colonise; if you have leylandii or pine to deal with, mixing them in with broadleaves is perfectly acceptable.

Freshly cut wood will work, but logs that are already part-rotted, riddled with beetle holes or bearded with lichen are far more valuable from day one.

Building the pile

There is no wrong way to stack a log pile, but a few touches make it dramatically better for wildlife.

• Start with the fattest logs at the bottom, laid on bare soil rather than a membrane or gravel. Contact with the earth keeps humidity high.
• Stack alternating layers at right angles to one another so that gaps and tunnels form naturally between the logs. These voids are where amphibians and beetles shelter.
• Sink two or three logs upright, half-buried in the soil. Rotting wood in direct contact with the ground is exactly what stag beetle larvae need, and it also suits many solitary bees.
• Tuck leaf litter, spent potting compost, woodchip and a few stones into the gaps. This holds moisture and gives fungi a foothold.
• Do not cap the pile with soil or seal it with a tarpaulin. Air and rain should reach it freely.

A pile around a metre and a half wide and knee-high is ample for most gardens. If space is tight, even a bundle of logs tucked behind a shed will earn its keep.

Frogs, toads and newts

For amphibians, the appeal is the cool, humid microclimate inside the pile. Common frogs and smooth newts will use log piles as daytime shelter in summer and as a place to sit out the winter, often squeezing into the gaps between logs or burying themselves in the leaf litter beneath. Common toads, which are fussier about drying out, appreciate a pile with a good depth of damp material at its base.

Slow worms and grass snakes also make use of log piles, basking on the warm upper surfaces in the morning and retreating into the damp heart of the stack when the day heats up. Rotting wood and compost heaps are favourite egg-laying sites for grass snakes because the decaying matter generates gentle warmth.

The golden rule is to leave the pile alone between October and March, and to lift logs gently rather than rolling the whole stack if you want a look. Amphibians and reptiles are protected from disturbance while hibernating, and a sudden midwinter rebuild can be fatal.

Letting it rot — and what you will see

Patience is part of the pleasure. Fungi usually arrive first: sulphur polypore spreading its mustard-yellow brackets, candle snuff fungus on a dead stump, and the delicate white threads of mycelium running through the bark. Beetles follow, from tiny featherwing beetles to the splendid lesser stag beetle, along with woodlice, millipedes and centipedes by the score. Hoverfly larvae, violet ground beetles and overwintering ladybirds all find something to their liking.

To keep the habitat going, top up the pile every year or two with a few fresh logs, always leaving the older, softer material in place. Keep some part of the stack shaded and mossy, and never make it too neat. A log pile is at its best when it looks slightly forgotten — give nature five years and it will reward you with more life per square foot than almost anything else in the garden.