It has been such a busy few weeks down in the wildlife garden at RSPB Fairburn Ings that we hardly know where to begin!
Lets start with the plants. Our aim was always to create a haven for wildlife and people alike.
We hoped to achieve this through planting a variety of wildlife friendly plants, preferably native, that would provide food, shelter and interest the whole year through. We’ve therefore used plants such as aqulegias, foxgloves, heathers, herbs and a multitude of others. We’ve even planted a small wild flower area using beautiful plants such as vipers bugloss, greater knapweed, cornflowers and field scabious to help our struggling pollinators – - its going to look pretty good too - thats as long as the April monsoon didn’t wash away all the seeds!
We hope your gardens at home survived the deluge too!
There have also been a couple of new man made additions. One of which is a water butt as water conservation is essential for all of us and is so simple to do. This means we can use the stored water to water the plants and also fill the pond, with the bonus being that rain water is actually the best thing you can use for both these things. We’ve also created a lovely bug hotel or as we like to call it our “Bee & Bee” - we’ve attached a photo for you
Much of this would not have been possible without the support of a few businesses that either gave us a discount and/or donated items for free. On behalf of all of us –the wildlife included – a massive thank you to:.
As always we would really welcome your comments on either the garden itself or wildlife gardening in general – or please feel free to post us a question or better still come down and see us in person. That way you’ll also be able to enjoy everything else our wonderful reserve has to offer.
Teresa RSPB Volunteer