Top marks to my local council - in fact I might email them to congratulate them, in the hope they keep doing good things for wildlife even through the 'financial climate'.

The thing is that they've gone and converted what was a fairly barren piece of grass which runs in a broad strip along the middle of a city-centre avenue into two parallel herbaceous borders.

It's a work in progress, and all I could do was peer over the temporary fencing, but even so I could see that it was already beginning to buzz with insects.

Their planting regime includes dahlias, tagetes, heleniums, echinacea and achilleas - all plants that I have in my top 400 garden plants for wildlife.

In the 5-minutes I had, I could see Honeybees, bumblebees, hoverflies, solitary wasps, a Common Darter dragonfly and a Holly Blue butterfly. I'd say that's not bad at all for a particularly built-up area of the city.

The borders are of course providing cover, shelter, pollen and nectar, and variety of plant food, but more than anything they provide a linear link between parkland areas to the north and south rather than just an open flat (and rather scary) expanse for insects to cross. So much wildlife needs to wander to survive that green corridors are vital.

And that's where a garden that is good for wildlife has double value - it is good in itself, but also as a vital stepping stone along a corridor.

 

 

 

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

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