With the Bee Cafes swapped over to the summer menu, the spring plants were needing a new home. Step forward the Martlesham Heath Bee Café Planting Area!
A team of Martlesham Heath Householders volunteers, including Lisa Calver of Aspect Garden Solutions, put in some hard graft to clear the site between Sandlings Walk & The Control Tower, Martlesham Heath ready for the pollinator-friendly planting. All of the perennials used in the spring Bee Cafes will be replanted at the site on 8th June, with help from local Cubs who will be earning their Gardening Badges! The bulbs will be stored and it is hoped they can be reused in the Cafe Planters next spring.
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Woodbridge's Bee Cafes are now in place, but there are plenty more projects in the pipeline!
We need around 600 used 2 litre clear plastic bottles to serve as plant pots in the other Bee Cafes planned. If you have any please bring them into the nursery on your next visit and drop them off at the donation station by the till. It was very wet weather for the official opening of Woodbridge's Bee Cafes but being hardy sorts, several of the Katie's Garden team joined Paul Martin, Woodbridge mayor Eamonn O'Nolan and volunteers this morning.
Several involved parties, including Katie's Garden's Susie Davis, were interviewed inside Shires Hall for upcoming videos, the mayor read a poem about treasuring our pollinators, and it was a quick trip out on to Market Hill to cut the ribbon. Not too many bees in the pouring rain but we are sure they will come! You can read about the opening on the BBC's News website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-68428336 Hear Paul Martin chat to Rob Dunger about the project on the Suffolk Sound website. The interview aired at 8am this morning: https://suffolksound.orwelltech.co.uk/rob-dunger-in-the-morning-friday-8-10/
The plants have been growing on well since the volunteer planting day, and it is now time for the Bee Cafes to leave the Katie's Garden nursery for their new homes across Woodbridge.
The 10 stations will get set up across the week with official launch day with the mayor on Friday 1st March - the first day of spring! Some of the volunteers from the planting-up day at Katies's Garden on 31st January tell Caroline why they got involved.
Katie's Garden owner Susie Davis talks Caroline through the plants selected for the spring Bee Cafes.
Paul talks Caroline through how the Bee Cafes are constructed, and how the clever watering systems in them work to make maximum use of rainfall.
Caroline Saunders chats to Bee Cafe mastermind Paul Martin to find out what inspired him to start the project!
Woodbridge gardener Caroline Saunders visited Katie's Garden to find out more about the Bee Cafe planters and to take part in the planting-up day.
Thank you very much to our volunteer teams who came and joined us at the nursery this Sunday!
The delightful dozen made great progress planting up the many bottles needed for Woodbridge's new bee cafe planters - around 300 in fact! Paul Martin explained how the planters work and how they will become part of the Woodbridge link of the national Bee Corridor.
At the request of Woodbridge Town Council, which is funding the project, all the plants in the bee cafes will be native to the UK.
For spring 2024 the planters will feature a mixture of flowering bulbs and perennials, including: Crocus, Muscari (grape hyacinths), English Bluebells Primula (cowslips), Violas, Cardamine (cuckoo flower), Wallflowers, Myosotis (forget-me-nots) With a colour scheme in the bees' preferred purples and yellows!
Bees and other pollinators are in dramatic decline across the UK, partly due to urbanisation of their habitat.
Bee Cafe Planters are specifically designed to fill urban "pollen gaps" with bee-friendly blooms from spring to autumn. Woodbridge's urban chain of Bee Cafes are planned to connect with the national bee corridor network, allowing our bees to move around, find more food and escape climate change. Click here to find out more about bee corridors. |
Bee Cafe PlantersKatie's Garden is collaborating with Gt Bealings Climate Emergency Rapid Response Squad to stock urban pollinator feeding stations - aka bee cafes - across Woodbridge town centre. LinksCategories |
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