The Warwickshire Wildlife Trust, in collaboration with Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust, launched a Wildlife Garden Design competition, and one of the winning designs will feature as Showcase Gardens at BBC Gardeners’ World Live.
One of the winning designs, Vicky’s garden will go on to be rebuilt in a permanent home at a flagship Warwickshire Wildlife Trust location. The garden will inspire visitors to encourage wildlife into their own gardens, through window boxes and any spaces that can be made available for nature.\
This is a dynamic garden which changes through the seasons, and will evolve year-to-year, supporting wildlife and the food web from the ground up, a haven, a home and a connection between other green spaces.
The centre of the design is based on an emerging fern, unfurling – a symbol of new beginning. The garden features a quiet zone, intended to give wildlife some undisturbed space, separated by (the spine of the fern) vertical posts of varying heights spaces to created windows into the space, and providing homes for insects. A Sorbus aucuparia (Rowan tree) acts as a central feature, continually supporting and providing shade during summer months; behind this is a brushwood and log pile.
Adjoining is a seating and entertaining area which is surfaced with planted ‘leaves’ of low-growing Mentha (mint) and Thymus (thyme), set amongst reclaimed aggregate ‘gravel’. On the west side of the garden a wildlife pond provides essential water and interest with aquatic plants. Shrubs provide continual interest from inside and outside, and winter shelter.
Vertical (climbing) plants on the fences, Lonicera periclymenum (Honeysuckle) and Hydrangea petiolaris (climbing Hydrangea) provide food and shelter, and new ‘hedgehog holes’ in the bottom of the fences ensure small mammals can travel through.
