Are you following the Chelsea Flower Show? Maybe you've even been and admired the show gardens. What creativity! What plantsmanship! What big budgets!
Behind the scenes, plans for our own 'feature' at Gardeners World Live continue apace, without the six figure sums but with the same level of love and commitment!.
This will the the RSPB's tenth year at the event, and you may recall that our stand will be split into a 'traditional' wildlife garden on one side, and a piece of urban wasteland (with its own wildlife value) on the other.
For the former, volunteer Richard has been making a log edging fence with wooden branches left over from tree cutting work at The Lodge RSPB nature reserve and from his own garden. This fencing will surround our trees and shrubs beds, which will include Hornbeam, Hawthorn, Field Maple and Crab Apple.
Meanwhile, another volunteer Malcolm Martin has been busy building an ‘Urban wildlife wall’ for our Urban Wildspace section. It is basically made up of junk!
The skeleton is leftover pallets from the RSPB's warehouse, painted in a green wood stain. Into the gaps will be slotted with used and broken roof tiles, old bricks, an old wooden post, tin cans and even toilet rolls - but Malcolm is crafting it to still look stylish.I'm told that this is far from the finished article, and plenty of brash will be added to fill around the items. But the idea is a real winner with children (and many adults). All the nooks and crannies can offer a safe haven for all sorts of wildlife, from frogs, toads and hedgehogs in the bottom layers to solitary bees and ladybirds in the drier upper layers.
Oh, and it's a great way to use all the odds and ends you have lying around your garden rather than more trips to the tip and more items for landfill.To build your own wildlife wall or stack, check out our information guide here: http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/gardening/insects/wildlifestack.aspxI will be on the stand for cosy chats on both the morning and afternoon of Thursday 16th and Saturday 18th June, so I hope to see you there.
And in Monday's blog, look out for the privileged advance viewing I was given of the new RSPB garden at Flatford in Sussex, ready for its opening next week
The bottom layers are filled with sand, home to at least two toads. The clay pipes I filled with twigs and bamboo, the Blackbirds continually pull them out to eat the insects living in them, I don’t know which insects they were as they are now inside the Blackbirds. There are many webs so there must be spiders.
Hi Juno and Wildlife Friendly
Great to hear that your wildlife stacks are working for wildlife - they sound excellent. What have you had in yours, Wildlife Friendly?
I love the wildlife stack too, I have two but on a much smaller scale. It surprised me how fast the wildlife found them. They are a great talking points too.
No GW live this year but it is on the cards for next year. Everywhere is such a long way when you live in the back of beyond.
I'll be there on the First day of the show, Wednesday.
When i saw the first wildlife stack the RSPB built a few years ago at the show i went home and immediately began collecting materials for my own, took about 5 months of skip diving and raiding rubbish heaps but I built a splendid stack and a hedgehog moved into the ground floor within a week, it currently has a mouse tennant, Bees, Spider and all sorts of other creepy crawlies.
I look forward to what other good ideas you have come up with for me to copy. :-)