Tag: wildlife garden

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Wildlife Garden – exciting news!

This year we have been working on revamping our wildlife garden with a team of Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award volunteers.  We have also been raising funds to replace the leaky pond liner and build a new – larger – pond dipping platform.

National Lottery grant

We are pleased to announce that we have been awarded £16,000 by the National Lottery Awards for All community fund.   £11,500 is to contribute towards the costs of the new pond liner, dipping platform and interpretative signage (the remainder is for new furniture for the Clubhouse).

Aviva Crowdfunder

We have been working with the Aviva Community Fund to crowdfund the remaining  £2,500 we need towards the costs of a new pond liner, dipping platform and hiring a digger to reprofile the shape of the pond (we’ve been advised that it needs shelves!).

Aviva will match fund any donations made – so if you donate £5 they will donate £5.  If you can help please visit our crowdfunder page https://www.avivacommunityfund.co.uk/p/revamping-the-wildlife-garden

What’s next?

Our volunteers will continue cutting back brambles, pruning hedges, sowing wildflower seeds and painting the bird hide as well as making new wildlife habitats over the coming months.  We hope to have a contractor renovate the pond and build a new pond dipping platform in the autumn.

 

 

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The Wildlife Garden project

In 2007 we created our popular Wildlife Garden with grant funding from the National Lottery Awards for All programme.

The garden was created on part of the site where bee orchids had been found, adjacent to the small river.  You can find out more about how we created the garden here: Wildlife Garden » Dorset Road Allotments.

Every year the garden gets a little bit wilder and is host to lots of mammals, amphibians, lizards, insects and birds… not to mention a fox family that likes to sunbath next to the pond.

Unfortunately, after 18 years the wooden dipping platform is deteriorating and the pond needs a new liner.  The interpretative signs have also faded in the sun and brambles are trying to take over!

Fortunately we have a team of Duke of Edinburgh volunteers who have started to tame the garden and make it more welcoming.  On day one they have started to cut back brambles and lay new bark chipping on the paths.

We are also fundraising to build a new and bigger pond dipping platform as well as replace the liner and sub-liner.  We plan to have new interpretative signs made and some additional benches.  It’s also time for the native hedge around the perimeter to be ‘laid’.

There’s lots of work to do to reclaim the wildlife garden and ensure it can be safely used for the next 20 years!  Watch this space for fundraising activities and progress reports.

 

 

 

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Dead Hedge

We have a new wildlife habitat on site that will help to reduce the amount of waste that we burn and support biodiversity.

We have created a ‘dead hedge’ along the riverbank opposite the Clubhouse.   This will replace the aging wooden fence with a new habitat.

Insects and invertebrates love rotting wood and the dead hedge will be a perfect home for them.

Insects and invertebrates are a vital part of a healthy garden. They help pollinate flowers and crops, They eat pests and are food for larger animals (such as small mammals hedgehogs and birds), They also help to recycle nutrients and improving the soil.

The fence was created by our members on Community Spruce days using stakes pollarded from a tree in the wildlife garden, together with recycled fencing wire.

Members are asked to put their woody waste on the dead hedge rather than taking it to the bonfire area.