Many of you will know that all this gardening for wildlife stuff I do is not my day job - it's my hobby and out-of-work passion. But I've found a sneaky way to take it into work with me!
The thing is that, at the start of the year, our office moved into a different part of Brighton city centre. Our new home is on the first floor of a terraced building, but it does have a 'light well' - an open air gravelled square, bounded on all sides by 8-foot walls of glass and white-painted brick. And you know what that means - garden!
Here is was on 3 April, with the first few pots in place.
My simple plan for year one was just to begin to fill the space with plants, and get a feel for the growing conditions up here, such as how much sunlight would penetrate into this 'elevated hole'. If any wildlife arrived this year it would be a bonus.
And here's where we'd got to by last week:
(As I said, don't judge me on design! It's just wildlife-friendly plants in pots at this stage.)
Various of my RSPB colleagues have helped with watering and some of the planting, and over time I want to involve them more.
The fab thing has been that some wildlife has already arrived, even though to get into this garden they have to fly up two storeys and drop into this green pit. So far we've had regular Buff-tailed Bumblebees, at least three species of hoverfly, Lime Hawkmoth, three species of moth caterpillar (so presumably their mother visited to lay her eggs), Blue Tit, Red Admiral, and our first Honeybee this week.
Almost all the plants are from cuttings or seed, so thus far the only cost is compost and pots - about £200 in total. And I estimate the time spent is about an hour a week.
And it has turned out to get very little sun, and be surprisingly breezy. But it is light, and it is slug and snail free. And a refuge for a few moments each day from emails and meetings. Bliss!
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
That is great, I’m sure your work colleagues appreciate it as much as the wildlife. I’m surprised you don’t have any bird feeders considering it is a RSPB building.
It will be interesting to see the comparison between garden visitors and visitors to your pot garden. I’m sure some wildlife will be far more adventurous than others.
I’d love to know when your first slug or snail arrives. I’m sure they have Star Trek ‘beaming’ technology!
Build it and they will come.