Calling all green fingered businesses
Thursday 29th March 2012
© Nestle
Businesses in the Region that support the birds and the bees still have time to enter the Big Wildlife Garden Competition.
The competition is being run by the Royal Horticultural Society and the 47 Wildlife Trusts in the UK, including Northumberland Wildlife Trust, and is being funded by Defra.
With categories embracing a diverse range of garden types from green roofs to residential window boxes, the competition aims to demonstrate the action we can all take to improve our natural environment for wildlife through gardening.
Throughout the Region, Northumberland Wildlife Trust is working with businesses to bring wildlife-friendly spaces into developments, with inspirational results.
One such company (and a corporate member of the wildlife charity), Newcastle-based Nestlé Fawdon has embarked on a project to encourage native wildlife to return to the site. Employees and their families have already planted a wildflower garden in the factory’s grounds with the aim of attracting many species of butterflies back to the area.
Steve Lowe, Head of Conservation at Northumberland Wildlife Trust said: “Work premises, with some wildlife-friendly alterations, can make a huge contribution to protecting wildlife and will enable employees to become custodians for wildlife.
“Our wildlife faces a number of threats but a wildflower garden, like the one at Nestlé Fawdon, is a refuge where nature can thrive. Gardening with wildlife in mind also creates beautiful places where we can be in close contact with nature, a much-needed tonic for so many people in our increasingly frenetic business world.
The closing date for the Big Wildlife Garden competition is 20 May 2012. Entry is free and can be done online at www.bigwildlifegarde.org.uk. Prizes include a wildlife gardening masterclass at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, where the prize-giving ceremony will take place.