Leiston Makes Space for Wildlife

02/06/2024

The Leiston Community Orchard is a sea of ox-eye daisies. Take a wander and enjoy their nodding blooms rustling in the breeze for a few moments…..

29/05/2024

A big shout out for giant echiums!! Not your everyday garden fave, this lovely is triennial, over-wintering is ‘so-so’, it bites you with its sharp spines, it throws up its huge spire in a matter of days, its leaves are a bit ‘meh’ - BUT it rewards you with a bee hotel of stonking proportions. After flowering for weeks on end, it withers and dies, leaving you with plantlets aplenty to take their chance and give you bee heaven in three years’ time.

The giant echium (aka vipers bugloss) has long been a native of balmier climes (it thrives in the Channel Isles and the Scillies) but our own shores have become more suitable in recent years as our winters are less severe.

My garden usually has a few each year - I take out the weak ones or we’d be over-run.

Do you love them, or hate them? They are the marmite of the gardening world. But they could save the bees!

04/04/2024

After the success of the Optimow 2023 Citizen Science Study, we are adapting and repeating the study in 2024!!! Optimow is helping the conservation of pollinating insects all from the comfort of your garden. In the project, you will be counting the flower visiting insects within your garden (just 15...

01/02/2024

This is too good for words……💛🌻🐝🌼🌝

They'll help to "bring greenery back into urban areas" 🐝

Over 40 new Bee Bus Stops should be in place in the city centre by the spring.

Read more: https://bbc.in/493Pyym

14/01/2024

Bee cafe 🐝🐝🐝😍

15/12/2023

Thank you, Sarah, for posting this lovely photo! We are looking forward to seeing the results over the coming years 😌

Stage 1 of re-wilding Leiston Community Orchard, whilst dodging the showers yesterday 🌧️🌼🌸

30/11/2023

We’ve gone a bit quiet lately but that doesn’t mean we’re not as busy as bees behind the scenes.

The orchard has recently had a large area seeded with wildflower mix. Native Gardens have been contracted to give the orchard a new lift and we hope their expertise will pay off over the next few years.

East Suffolk Services will be planting daffodil bulbs on the slope beside the skatepark to replace the ones we lost when the extension was built. Weather permitting, this will be done during early December if the frosty conditions allow.

Please let us know if you have any ideas about how we can make more space for wildlife in our town. We have great plans for future projects but you can all make a difference in your own patch too.

From the Makes Space team 🌻

Our little wildflower patch at Victory Road Recreation Ground was more successful in year two:

15/06/2023

What a great idea for the children!

15/06/2023

Look at this beautiful wildflower bed at Runnymede Gardens, Ilfracombe. It cost just £10 for the seed and half an hour of labour to sow in April, and that’s it!

Wildflower beds like these provide food for pollinators like bees and butterflies and other insects. Every garden should have one 🤩 🦋 🌸 🌱 🐝 🌺

14/06/2023

We’ve applied - let’s hope we have been successful!

Blooming marvellous! Thousands of daffodil bulbs are set to sprout across East Suffolk next spring after being distributed to communities as part of our East Suffolk Blooms annual planting programme. 🌷

East Suffolk Council received 120 applications from voluntary and community groups to join the scheme and receive around 500 free bulbs to plant this winter.

An East Suffolk Blooms selection panel met to decide where the available 82 sets of narcissus bulbs would eventually find a home.

Successful applicants will be invited to collect their bulbs from depots in Ufford or Lowestoft in October – ready for planting over the winter.

Pictured is Cllr Rachel Smith-Lyte, East Suffolk Council’s cabinet member for Environment.

https://bit.ly/43F8SzH

20/05/2023