The garden is open again today from 10am - 4.30pm!
We are so excited to be welcoming visitors back to our very special place. The volunteer team have done a fantastic job of taking care of essential tasks throughout the last difficult year but of course nature is the star.
Please come and see us at our wildlife garden in Flatford, Essex for inspiration and advice on all things wildlife gardening and enjoy the beauty and tranquillity of the garden and the stunning countryside of Dedham Vale where we are situated.
A very happy Blackbird: Ray Kennedy (rspb-images.com)
To celebrate the occasion, I wanted to share a very heartfelt article that long-standing RSPB gardener Shirley Sampson wrote a few years ago about her passion for the wildlife garden:
There is a magic about a garden. From an early age I have felt it, walking out into the dawn, feeling the dew between my bare toes, the sun on my face, the hushed, reverent calls of the birds…. The benevolence of nature in all her glory, bending gently to our will in a place that we can briefly call our own.
I am the gardener at the RSPB’s wildlife garden in Flatford, near East Bergholt, and it’s been my pleasure to develop this garden over the last 10 years. The garden, set in the wonderful timewarp that is Constable’s Flatford, is there because people need to know that they have tremendous power within their hands. Studies show that gardens can provide very valuable habitat and sources of food for much of our struggling wildlife, namely bees, butterflies, hedgehogs, slow worms, many garden birds and a whole raft of other, less obvious little creatures. With gardens covering over an estimated 3000 square miles in Britain, this means that collectively they could be the largest and most important nature reserve in the country!
This is the reason that the RSPB decided to use the land, kindly bequeathed to them by Sylvia and Margaret Richardson of Flatford, as an exemplar of gardening for wildlife. The garden opened in June of 2011, and is free to enter every day between the Easter Holidays and the October half term annually.
April is a wonderful time in the garden – although it awakens slowly to the sun’s warmth, the small precious flowers that herald spring are particularly lovely – little jewel-like crocus opening to the sun and to the tiny solitary bees that seek their pollen; the delicate beauty of dainty wild daffodils, belying their ability to withstand fickle spring weather… The sweet-violets on a sunny bank attracting the sleepy attention of the first queen bumblebee, muzzily seeking nectar.
It seems to have been a long winter, but it is satisfying to know that the garden has been a haven during those chill, dark months. One of the simplest things that we do to help wildlife through the winter is delaying the big autumn tidy-up until winter is over. The dead plant matter and autumn leaves then provide an insulating blanket over the surface of the soil, providing a warm, dry home for ladybirds, woodlice, earwigs, and hundreds of other little creatures. Eughhh! I hear you say – Earwigs? Who wants them? Well, this is one of the most important concepts of wildlife gardening: earwigs and many of the other little un-glamorous creepy crawlies of the garden are essential food for many of the larger, prettier or more interesting creatures. So, hedgehogs, frogs, song thrushes, dunnocks, newts, and many more of these struggling creatures are all carnivores, and will be extremely happy to find a thriving source of creepy crawlies in your garden. I still remember with pride the first time I saw two song-thrushes rummaging in the fallen field maple leaves in the garden in the depths of winter. They were doubtless after the earthworms, rising to the surface to retrieve autumn leaves to pull below and eat. And the moment of wonder on a day when the snow was 8 inches deep on the ground, and I noticed a chaffinch eating seeds from a standing seedhead we had NOT cut down the previous autumn – the seeds high and dry above the snow, like a buffet for the little bird, puffed out with the cold. I remember thinking, Isn’t nature wonderful!
We have also been aware of another thriving population of residents in the garden over the winter, although they are hardly ever spotted…. The grass in the wildflower meadow has been getting shorter and shorter, and since we know that it’s not down to rabbits, we have concluded that we have a very happy and healthy population of voles, nibbling away. That seems to have been a general trend everywhere this year, and in fact has provided a much needed source of food to boost to barn owl numbers over the past breeding season. I do wish the voles would restrain themselves from eating my wallflowers and honesty, however, but I suppose that’s life in a wildlife garden! Perhaps the weasel family that bred on the sunny bank behind the vegetable patch will come again and redress the balance in the spring.
This has been the magic of our garden at Flatford, building the garden, planting it thoughtfully, and hoping…. And then the delight as wrens and dunnocks moved into the shelter of the dead hedges, blackbirds nested in the clematis, red-tailed bumblebees disappeared down holes in the wildflower meadow, comma butterflies laid their eggs on the golden hop, and all manner of bees foraged amongst the flowers we carefully chose for them. How wonderful to know that if you give nature an opportunity, it will grasp it gratefully…. So now, garden-owners, it’s over to you! If you need some ideas, come and visit our garden, and then see what is within your power to do for our struggling wildlife!
Flatford Wildlife garden opens everyday through the spring and summer with children’s activities and events throughout the season plus advice on wildlife gardening on hand, and plants for sale.
Bathing Song Trush: Norton (rspb-images.com)
The Garden is open everyday until October from 10.30am – 4.30pm.
Entrance to the garden is free and well-behaved dogs on leads are welcome.
Car parking is £5 at the National Trust car park and this gives you access to the stunning countryside walks around Dedham Vale in Constable Country.
Events and Activities will be posted on the official RSPB Website