The Aldi competition for schools to win one of 25 mini gardens for wildlife had excellent take-up, and I understand Aldi are announcing the winning schools very shortly.
Each of the successful schools will get a quality raised bed made from timber from sustainable sources that they can then fill with a giant bag of peat-free compost and plant up with wildlife-friendly plants (grown peat-free, of course!).
The star piece of kit being a moulded mini wildlife pond that has shelves and slopes to allow creatures in and out
I am the proud caretaker of the prototype, which has been in place next to my garage for over a month now. It gave time for the Verbena bonariensis (a butterfly magnet) to unfurl a few flowers, and the Echinacea (another pollinator fave) to sport one elegant bloom. They should be magnificent plants next year.
The only jobs I've had to do so far have been to pluck out a few emerging weeds...
...and to fish out some tree leaves that had blown into the pond...
...so maybe just 10 minutes work so far ̶ I love low-maintenance gardening!
The garden won't start to come into its own for wildlife until next spring, but in the meantime I've started to customise my kit with a few logs and sticks as cover and food for creepy-crawlies, plus some hefty logs to the side as a step ladder for creatures to climb up into the raised bed.
We'll be asking the schools to think of some things they can do to make it even better for wildlife. What would you do?
If you want to drop by my RSPB wildlife gardening blog, it is updated every Friday, and I'd love to see you there - www.rspb.org.uk/community/blogs/hfw