The Bumblebee Conservation Trust asks people across the UK to “Bee the Change” The Bumblebee Conservation Trust is on a mission to help everyone Bee the Change in their local area, with a new campaign launched today (18 March 2021) asking people across the UK to take simple, quick micro-actions to make their postcode more bumblebee-friendly. Bumblebees are familiar and much-loved insects that pollinate our crops and wildflowers. But bumblebees are in trouble and need our help. Over the past century our landscape has lost millions of the flowers they rely on to survive. Through the campaign, people will pledge…
Author: John Archer
Local spider expert Edward Milner writes: The beetle lists for Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park and Mile End Park continue to grow, as my regular surveys have found more new species: 18 in Cemetery Park and eight at Mile End Park. These have all been identified by beetle expert Norman Heal. The new additions bring the beetle lists for Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park and Mile End Park to 478 and 448 respectively. Two particularly interesting records from Cemetery Park are Onthophagus medius (left) and Saprosites natalensis. Onthophagus medius is a dung beetle in the family Scarabaeidae. It is a very local…
Around half a million people from across the UK are set to take part in the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch by counting the birds in their gardens over the weekend of 29-31 January 2021. They’ll also make a record of the other wildlife they see throughout the year, providing a vital snapshot of UK nature. The largest wildlife survey in the world, the Big Garden Birdwatch has been running for over 30 years, and last year just under 500,000 people took part and nearly 8 million birds were counted. Despite its much-publicised decline in numbers, the House Sparrow was the…
Jane Sill of Cable Street Community Garden writes: It’s been such a strange year, but very beautiful one, nature-wise! I’m sure the lockdown has created many more birdwatchers and people interested in the environment. The birds and bugs are thriving in Cable Street Community Garden. Here is a selection of pictures that demonstrate how the Garden has brought peace and beauty to our members throughout the year. All photos by Jane Sill, click to enlarge. Header photo: April in the Garden
Jess Massucco of Trees for Cities writes: Trees for Cities worked in partnership with the London Borough of Tower Hamlets to plant trees in Mile End Park. A total of 21 heavy standard trees and a mixed native hedge of whips were planted in two areas of the park – Agnes Green in the south of the park, and Haverfield Green to add to the trees that were planted there in 2019. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, activities with the pubic were reduced and carefully monitored. Consultation We spent one day at the park in July 2020 to introduce…
In September 2019, the Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park (FoTHCP) received an ‘Our Space Award’ from Groundwork. The funding enabled FoTHCP to work with the local community to further improve green areas in Shandy Park, a park they’ve been working in since the start of their Nature & Us project. The Groundwork project involved planting flowering bulbs and wildflower plugs, sowing wild flower seeds, and raking cut grass with the local community. A contractor was even hired to remove an area of disused tarmac in the park, which the community then planted. It was a HUGE success from start…
Bees and other pollinating insects have seen an increase in nectar-rich flowers in Victoria Park this year. The eight flower beds around the Burdett-Coutts fountain have been transformed by a change from annual bedding to nectar-rich perennial planting. This was achieved through late spring and early summer by the park’s gardening team, working with local volunteers and trainees in small, Covid-19 safe groups. The new perennial beds, with a largely white theme including Echinaceas, Gauras, Dahlias and Salvias, look stunning and are atteracting lots of bees and other insects. Planting perennials instead of annuals is a much more sustainable form…
Neil Cumins from PropertyWorkshop.com explains how to assemble the ultimate window box to attract wildlife to your home. There’s a common assumption that only people with gardens get to enjoy the simple pleasures of gardening. In fact, that’s not the case. Whether you live in a terraced house or a tower block, you can nurture plants and give birds and insects a place to visit by installing a window box. Despite their compact dimensions, window boxes can provide a wealth of opportunities for enjoying the natural world – providing they’re assembled correctly. There are some common mistakes many first-time window…
The Council’s parks service arranged for Dutch bulb company Lubbe & Sons to plant 200 square metres of their Bee Mix in Weavers Fields. The specially developed Bees Mix consists of a number of bulbs that provide nectar for bees and butterflies. These include crocuses, glory-of-the-snow, squill, grape hyacinth and naturalising tulips. These will produce a colourful display from February through to May. The bulbs were machine-planted in metre-wide strips in the north-west of the park. Machine planting gets the bulbs deeper than hand planting, while causing less disturbance to the ground. This makes it much harder for squirrels to…
Molly Gadenz of the Lower Regents Coalition writes: The Lower Regents Coalition just completed its most recent project to further improve the stretch of the Regent’s Canal running from Limehouse Basin to Mile End Road. With our largest grant yet from the Mayor of London’s Greener City Fund, the group embarked on a two-day project to install 75 square metres of floating planters from Biomatrix Water Solutions into the canal between the Ben Jonson Road bridge and Johnson’s Lock. A significant amount of planning went into the project, including designing the floating structures to best fit the space where they…