"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead, American anthropologist, 1901-1978
As well as listing the ingredients to include, the blog helpfully includes things to avoid, and also the method of making your feeder.
As well as getting messy and making your own homemade bird feeder, you can then watch the visitors coming to your garden to enjoy the feast you've left them! Get the kids to see how many they can spot and identify - it's a great way to get them close to nature.
Also on the blog you'll find a way to turn used carton into seed holders.
If you've been wanting to fill your garden with colour or fill gaps which haven't got anything in them, then this could be a good time to do it.
Online retailers Thompson & Morgan have a great offer on this weekend with 20% off their plants, bulbs and seeds.
From Friday 18th January 2019 at 00:00:01 ending on Monday 21st January 2019 at 23:59:59, you can enjoy 20% off your order from them. You just click through to activate your discount.
If that doesn't work, apply TM_TN510W into the promotion order code box within your shopping basket.
This offer excludes all products within their Tool Shed, Outdoor Living, Buildings & Fencing and Wild Birdfood categories. And it cannot be used in conjunction with promotional vouchers or any other offer including all reader & advert offers. Plus it's applicable to UK postcodes only.
Although they are asking people in Worcestershire to do this, I thought, what a brilliant idea - and so I wanted to let everyone know about it in the hope more people would follow suit wherever they are and pledge a patch for wildlife!
The Worcestershire Wildlife Trust is celebrating its 50th birthday and it now has 75+ nature reserves across Worcestershire. They describe them as "stepping stones in the landscape" - I love that description. And they are asking people to join the dogs so that wildlife can move through safely.
Wildlife all over the world need wildlife corridors to help them move from one place to another and these are vital to help them reach everything they need to survive and thrive.
Ideas of how you can pledge a patch are... (and no, you don't need a garden)...
Fill a window box with nectar and pollen rich plants
Attach a bug box to the wall of your house
Leave a 1m by 1m square of grass longer so that daisies can grow for the bees
Put up a nest box for birds
Plant a pollinator patch in an area of land - businesses could easily do that
Bring your neighbours together and ensure that hedgehogs can get from one garden to another easily
Join up with locals to turn an unused patch of land into an areas for butterflies
Create a small pond for frogs and toads
Offer to manage a local verge and fill it with wild flowers - just sow wildflowers around it and don't mow it so often
So there's plenty everyone can do wherever you are. 80 peole have already signed up to the Pledge a Patch initiative and you can find out more from their website here.
The RSPB have just joined forces with Barrett Homes. They apparently are looking to create developments and green spaces that’s friendly to nature.
Give them a home, and they will come - as the RSPB advert says
There's no doubt in my mind that having wildlife in a garden give the place far more colour and life. There's nothing like watching the birds from a corner of the garden take a splash in a bird bath, or feast on the food you've put out for them - or to discover a hedgehog, or watch butterflies flutter from one group of flowers to another. Honestly, it's like having your own nature show.
60% of the species which have been monitored in the UK in the last 50 years are declining. And yet, private gardens in the UK cover about 450,000 hectares of land – an area larger than Suffolk.
So the potential to create fantastic places for wildlife is huge. And they don’t need a lot of room, as Butterfly Conservation’s Pot for Pollinators shows – you just need a pot with a butterfly friendly plant stuck in it and anyone can put that on a patio or balcony.
Anyway, back to the RSPB and Barrett Homes.
They’ve created some advice to help you get started giving nature a home in your garden.
The guide has basic steps on how to make your garden wildlife friendly, garden features that will help you make the most of any size garden (so there’ s no need to have a garden the size of Kent to get started), and a full plant guide of what to plant and what not to plant.
It’s National Gardening Week, and this is a great chance to raise awareness of opportunities to get gardening!
Did you know that there are a number of different gardening campaigns to get people gardening?
A couple of my favourite are from the RHS, that’s the Royal Horticultural Society – Britain’s main gardening charity. The RHS is known for its world famous RHS flower shows such as RHS Chelsea, RHS Hampton Court and RHS Tatton Park; and also for campaigns such as Britain in Bloom which helps build local communities.
But there’s also a couple of others which I think are really important from the RHS and other gardening charities so here there are:
As Britain gets more and more concrete, and there’s more and more building, so it’s really important to look after and create new green spaces. Gardens are crucial, and they are also an essential way to help wildlife. Wildlife are losing more and more habitat to human activity. What’s more, the more land we concrete over, the more risk at flooding we are and the more we damage the environment and our health.
So the RHS is running a campaign to encourage people to get Greening Grey Britain. You could for example:
Plant a tree
Plant a shrub
Plant a flower bed
Plant a window box or a container
Plant a climber
Do something else
The RHS are hoping that 6,000 people will join in this campaign – so far over 2,800 people have done just that.
Wild About Gardens is a joint initiative by the RHS and The Wildlife Trusts to get more people growing for wildlife. This year, the theme is Go Wild For Worms – they are essential to life and a gardener’s best friend. They are also essential food for wildlife.
Young people are clearly the gardeners of tomorrow but more importantly I think they are going to be the guardians of our planet. Frankly, and this is just a personal view, I hope they do a better job of it than my generation have done.
The RHS Campaign for School Gardening inspires and supports schools to give children with gardening opportunities to enhance their skills and boost their development. Children love gardening and it does them so much good.
The RHS is looking to tackle the crisis in the horticultural industry in the UK which is suffering from a growing skills crisis. It’s working to improve the perception of careers in the sector, to support schools in the delivery of horticultural qualifications and to work with the Government to secure funding for plant-science research.
Over 2,000 community groups participate in this gardening campaign – caring for parks, greening street corners, revamping alleyways and basically creating greener, safer places for everyone to live with a fresh community spirit.
Just Add Water is a national campaign to encourage the public to dig wildlife ponds, especially in urban environments. There's been a huge loss of countryside ponds in recent years so hopefully this will help local frogs and newts and other wildlife to survive and thrive. Efforts locally can make a big difference and Froglife have created the Just Add Water campaign to help give advice and tips.
