My oasis
Growing up and living in the countryside for much of her life, Helen is used to big wide open spaces and loves being outside. She enjoys coming to the Centre for Wildlife Gardening, as it’s like…
Growing up and living in the countryside for much of her life, Helen is used to big wide open spaces and loves being outside. She enjoys coming to the Centre for Wildlife Gardening, as it’s like…
The common dandelion is a most familiar flower: counting down the 'clock', while blowing the fluffy seeds from its head, is a favourite childhood game. Dandelions are an important early…
Hassan & Asma moved from the Sudan in 1969 as newlyweds, so that Hassan could take up a job at Kings College Hospital. Hassan remembers farming with his father, watering the broad beans, wheat…
The Welsh poppy is a plant of damp and shady places, roadsides and hillsides. It is also a garden escapee. It flowers over summer, attracting nectar-loving insects.
Whether feeding the birds, or sowing a wildflower patch, setting up wildlife areas in your school makes for happier, healthier and more creative children.
The defensive mechanism of the pill woodlouse is very recognisable - it curls itself into a tight ball, only showing its plated armour to its attacker. It is an important recycler of nutrients,…
The buzz of a bee, the sweet scent of honeysuckle, these precious moments are not only a delight to experience in our gardens, they’re absolutely vital if we’re going to protect, restore and…
As its name suggests, the Melancholy thistle was once used to treat 'melancholia' (depression). Today, it can be found in upland hay meadows showing off its single, purple, thistle-like…
Bell heather is our most familiar heather. In summer, it carpets our heaths, woods and coasts with purple-pink flowers that attract all kinds of nectar-loving insects.
Cross-leaved heath is a type of heather that likes bogs, heathland and moorland. It has distinctive pink, bell-shaped flowers that attract all kinds of nectar-loving insects.
Elegant, airy woodlands of silver-barked birches found across the northern uplands. Often transient in feel, with scattered trees growing over the heathy field layer of the surrounding moorland,…
The dense, spiky tufts of Marram grass are a familiar sight on our windswept coasts. In fact, its matted roots help to stabilise sand dunes, allowing them to grow up and become colonised by other…