Here at Hawthorn Farm we’ve been busy working on our newly refurbished woodland walk. Earlier in the year the area was completely re-landscaped to make it safe and accessible for our customers and since then we have incorporated lots of new features. These include two insect hotels, 3 hedgehog homes, a hibernatum, wildlife water points plus pollinator planting. All additions have been made in-house, from recycled materials, whenever possible. We have also planted 3 new native trees in this area; two malus and a prunus, as part of The Queen’s Green Canopy initiative to celebrate Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee.

In addition to the above we have upgraded our eco plot by planting several Buddleia (commonly called butterfly bush) and installed two insect homes and a wildlife water point. Around the park two grass set aside areas have been created, allowing the grass to grow to provide food and protection for park wildlife and we have also rolled out our ‘Adopt a Hedgehog Home’ scheme (see previous journal entry for Little Satmar for details).

All these projects were guided by our involvement with the ‘David Bellamy Blooming Marvellous Pledge for Nature’ scheme where we chose ‘Home Sweet Home’ as our project for 2022: to provide a variety of habitats and artificial homes for wildlife.

We have also made four new bird boxes plus an owl box which have been sited around the park and like our sister parks have installed new signage with QR codes for interpretation purposes.

As suggested by our ‘Blooming Marvellous’ advisor we have used mainly herbs and wildflowers in our planters this season, along with peat free compost and continue to manage the grounds with a chemical free policy.