Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Bee Friendly Garden for Hanley Park

AirSpace Gallery have been making interventions and doing projects in our local Hanley Park since 2010, in activity which has included artists' residencies, exhibitions and temporary artworks, as well as myself and Andrew Branscombe spending quite a bit of time in Hanley Park last year when it was one of our sites for the Birder's Paradise Project.
This year we are working with the Women's Institute group 'Let's Make Jam' and the Friends of Hanley Park, to develop a Bee Friendly Garden, within the Nature reserve area of the park.
Over a number of days this summer, we will be meeting in the park, armed with spades, loppers and gloves and changing this small area of the park - with a lovely new planting scheme and design to maximise habitats and food for bees (and other creatures).
We had our first day in the park last Friday, and had a great turnout. The jobs for week one were to join the woodchip path up to the main path, clear the weeds, and identify and plants to save, and make an attempt to move the rocks.
People really got stuck in and we got so much done! It was great to have such a good team of people working together.
By the end of the day we could already see the shape of our new garden emerging, and while we were working we found plenty of encouragement that wildlife are already making a great home here, so we will just be accentuating what is already present. 
We launch the garden on August 15th with some fantastic, family friendly workshops - tell your bee loving friends (and the bees.)

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