Kevin O’Donnell is the kind of gardener who really would like to help you with your prickly little problems.

Kevin, who is head gardener at the National Trust’s Llanerchaeron estate in Ceredigion, is not volunteering to prune your roses – but he would be delighted to re-home any stray or orphaned hedgehogs.

Kevin says it’s all down to protecting the environment and rejecting chemical pesticides. “ We’ve worked these beautiful gardens at Llanerchaeron in an organic way for some years now, but the slugs and snails still chew through a worrying share of the lettuces and other vegetables that we grow.

“If we could re-settle some hedgehogs humanely from the area near us then it would be ideal” says Kevin who’s been head gardener at the National Trust property near Aberaeron for just three months.

©National Trust

“It would not be very green if people drove here with their garden hedgehogs from Cardiff, say, but certainly if people like the hedgehog hospital in Haverfordwest had any animals to re-home then we would be delighted to have them, “ says Kevin.

But it is not quite such a simple matter. Hedgehogs are nomadic according to Kevin and might wander off again even if they have begun new lives in the two-acre walled garden at Llanerchaeron. So he’s planning a two-pronged attack on the slugs.

“There’s no doubt that thrushes and blackbirds are also good predators on snails and slugs. So we’re going to make the garden even more the kind of habitat those species of birds will inhabit,” he says.

“If you pay attention carefully round your garden you’ll sometimes hear thrushes hitting snails against a stone to smash their shells. That’s just the kind of help a gardener can do with. And on those damp, summer nights – just after dark – you’ll see hedgehogs all around Wales on the hunt for snails and slugs as they slither along in the dew,” Kevin told me.

The National Trust at Llanerchaeron is holding a “Hedgehog Day” on July the 27^th Janice Thomas, the visitor services manager at the estate, which is just three miles inland from Aberaeron, says there’ll be a hedgehog trail for children and adults to follow around the estate, there’ll be children’s crafts to do and there’ll be a delightful guest appearance.

“Yes, we’ll have Trusty the Hedgehog here too,” says Janice. “He’s a full sized – almost humanlike – kind of animal and he’s very much loved by all the kids who ever meet him. And there’s a serious side to the day too.

“We’ll have information panels round the place pointing out to visitors that hedgehogs do a great deal of good in our gardens, but they face a lot of dangers that people need to be told about. The National Trust is determined here at Llanerchaeron that we’ll work together in close harmony with Mr and Mrs Tiggiwinkle,” said Janice.

If you want to get in touch about where Kevin and Janice can find suitable orphan hedgehogs then email her at janice.thomas@nationaltrust.org.uk