Attracting lizards to your garden

Did you know?

• Lizards/kārara are an important yet often unseen part of our native biodiversity. Most people only realise they have lizards on their property when their cat brings one home!    
• In New Zealand, there are geckos wtih baggy, velvety skin and broad heads; and skinks with sleek, smooth skin - like a snake with legs.
• Lizards help scatter the seeds of some of our native plants, and may also pollinate their flowers.

Encouraging lizards

To encourage lizards into your suburban garden or rural property, you need a basic understanding of their needs, their behaviour, and then have plenty of patience before you see them return. Learn about the species and create habitat that they love. It won’t take much effort, lizards love messy and untidy gardens!

Common gecko

Lizards need places to hide. They need cover when hunting, feeding and resting and they need protection from predators and extremes of heat and cold. Create crevices and cover using natural objects or any non-toxic material (e.g., old building material, concrete, old roofing iron). The material isn’t important. It’s the retreat sites you’re creating - lizards like to squeeze into body-sized holes and they like plenty of them.

Mown lawns, open paths and nicely weeded open flower beds are unsuitable for lizards. Many lizards are also territorial so create enough habitat for all the animals. Try not to disturb habitat too much, if they’re forced from their territory they may have no other place to go and will find it difficult to survive.

Predators

All introduced mammals (cats, mustelids, hedgehogs and rodents) and some birds, such as magpies and starlings, eat lizards. If you have a cat, you’ll need to make extra efforts to ensure there’s plenty of secure cover where lizards can forage and hide. Trapping predators such as rats and possum will also be a great benefit.

Diet

Their thrifty diet of small invertebrates (eg small flies and beetles) is easily supplemented by planting fruit-bearing shrub and vine species. Suitable plants and advice on how to grow them can be obtained from your local native plant nursery.

Some simple ideas for attracting lizards

• Mulch your garden heavily—it will improve water retention for plants and also create a humid environment for lizards and their invertebrate prey.
  
• Plant berry or nectar producing species, especially natives, and try to get a range of species to ensure a continuous supply of food throughout the year.
  
• Try growing organically or minimise the use of sprays to ensure that insect populations thrive. Allow vines to grow a long way up walls or steep embankments, so animals can easily move up and down.
  
• Discourage cats from your garden. Plant thickly so they can’t access the area. Consider not replacing your cat.
  
• Plant thickly, including thick ground-covers and vines to create safe habitats that lizards can retreat to when predators threaten.
  
• Provide lots of debris such as rotting logs, bark chips, rock and boulder piles, untreated timber, corrugated iron and firewood, and encourage plants to grow
  around it.
  
• Design stone walls, retaining walls or embankments that have plenty of small gaps, cracks and crevices and encourage fungi, plants and vines to grow on them.
  
• Wait patiently - it may be a while before lizards return to the new real estate you have created for them.

Making an Onduline lizard home

Onduline lizard home

Onduline is an extremely tough lightweight corrugated roofing and cladding product made from organic fibres saturated with bitumen.

Sheets are two metres long and can be cut into smaller pieces (290 mm x 400 mm or larger) with a handsaw or skillsaw. These should be stacked two or three-high with small stones in between the layers.

Place your lizard home in a warm dry sunny area with good cover such as divaricating shrubs, tussocks and rock piles. Once in place do not disturb your lizard home. Prospective tenants will abandon habitat that is frequently disturbed.

Lizards are protected

All native lizard species are protected by the Wildlife Act, and may not be captured, collected or deliberately disturbed without a permit issued by DOC. Generally lizards may only be kept in captivity or collected for scientific, educational or advocacy purposes. Getting to know the habits of these secretive critters in your own lizard-friendly backyard is a far more rewarding alternative!

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