Resources
Our 4 top tips to help support pollinators in your outside growing space:
- Grow nectar and pollen rich flowers
- Provide water for pollinators - a shallow dish filled with small pebbles is great for small insects
- DO NOT use pesticides
- Provide nest sites for wild bees - purpose made bee hotels often go unused as bumblebees prefer to nest in holes in the ground, for example under hedges with plants along the base
Which plants are best to grow?
There are many organisations which have information about plants most favoured by pollinating insects, below is a list of some of them:
Our Blog Posts:
- We have a pollinator fact of the week post which you can follow for a weekly update and some of our latest tips and information
- Planting fruit and veg for pollinators
Tooting Community Garden:
The Community Garden on North Drive (also run by Transition Town Tooting) is a volunteer led garden growing organic vegetable, herbs and pollinator friendly plants.
The garden is currently closed to the public due to Covid but we hope to have some news to share about how we can use the garden later in the year.
In the meantime we will be growing a variety of nectar and pollen rich flowers that will be offered for sale (at a nominal cost) to anyone who registered to participate in Pollinator Paradise. The exact date of the plant sale has yet to be agreed, as it rather depends on the government guidelines but we hope we will have the plant sale in early - mid May.
Sharing Seeds:
Sharing Seeds is a community initiative also organised by TTT to yes you guessed it share seeds and Covid permitting will be organising a Seed Swap.
They also have a program for planting in tree pits, which if you don't have a front garden could be a great way to take part and also a great way for your street to work together on a pollinator corridor. Please let them know if you do adopt a tree as they can let the council which trees are being managed so that those can be skipped for weed spraying.
30 Days Wild in Wandsworth Facebook Group:
Looking forward to June, '30 Days Wild in Wandsworth' will be kicking off again. Inspired by the Wildlife Trusts initiative, this is a great local community, celebrating being outdoors and encouraging random acts of wildness every day of June, during the peak of our competition.
The group stays active throughout the year, sharing photos and observations of local wildlife and sharing ideas for wildlife related activities.
