Re-wilding project and plastic free July.

Over on our World Environment Day blog back in June, we mentioned that we were going to try our own 're-wilding' experiment in our garden on a small scale.

Britain has now lost over half of its' native wildlife. We think this is something we all need to be aware of and help reverse, rather than leaving it to large organisations such as The Eden Project or large estates carry out re-wilding projects on a large scale.⁣

Between 1970 and 2015, Britain's farmland birds declined by 56% with a loss of at least 44 million individual birds. It's sickening to think that our quest for cheap food (half of which gets thrown away) has caused the decline of so much natural beauty. 

Once common sights in our pastures and meadows, birds such as lapwings, spotted flycatchers and cuckoos have now disappeared, along with native plants and flowers such as corn cockles and cornflowers. 
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We mentioned that we were going to leave little 'wildlife islands' of un-mown grass, and monitor what insects and wildlife grew there. ⁣
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As you can see from the pictures, we have now got clover, wild grasses, and some amazing Yarrow growing. Yarrow is a really beneficial herb, both for insects and humans! It can be made into a refreshing tea and has numerous uses in natural medicine. ⁣
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The small patch was teeming with bumble bees, grasshoppers, soldier beetles and a couple of ladybirds. ⁣
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If that small patch of grass can contain so much wildlife, imagine how many insects and plants could thrive if everyone left just a small patch of their lawn to go wild?⁣

The RSPB give some further advice on how to let parts of your lawn go wild and create your own mini eco system. Did you know that birds such as sparrows and goldfinches feed from the seed of wild plants and grasses? If you leave some parts of your garden to go wild, you could soon be seeing more birds as well as insects thriving in your garden. Read the RSPB's advice for going wild here.
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Have you tried creating a wildlife island in your garden? Its a great summer project  and if you have kids, it's a great way to help get them involved in protecting and caring for our native wildlife.