Brands of Inspiration: this article has been created by Positive News and supported by Ecotricity

1. Blooming bright: choose the right flowers

Choose plants with open or snout shaped flowers, like single dahlias or foxgloves, to make it easiest for bees to extract the nectar or pollen. Bees can see purple better than any other colour, so violet, mauve, or lavender blooms are particularly good choices. If you need help identifying bee-friendly species, keep an eye out for the RHS ‘perfect for pollinators’ tag in garden centres.

Image: Lesley Juarez

2. All year round: plant for the seasons

When turning your garden into a bee paradise, bear in mind how plants flower at different times of year. Choose a variety of different bee-friendly species and plan ahead so that a couple will be in bloom at all times throughout the spring, summer and autumn months. Planting now for early summer? Good choices are: campanula, allium, borage, catmint, globe thistle, poppy, sweet pea or thyme.

3. Step away from the mower

One of the biggest threats to Britain’s bees is the loss of their natural habitat: grassy meadows, replete with wildflowers. Modern gardens and grass verges tend to be mowed short, destroying bees’ food. Letting your lawn grow long will give wild flowers the opportunity to blossom, providing extra sustenance for passing pollinators.

Image: Jonas Weckschmied

4. Gimme shelter: variety is key

By incorporating different habitats and types of shelter into your garden, you can help as many of Britain’s bee species as possible. Bee hotels – fun and easy to make – provide shelter for cavity-nesting bees such as mason bees and leafcutter bees. These should be in a sunny, ideally south-facing position, at least a metre off the ground.

Some solitary species, such as the mining bee, burrow into the ground. To make this easier for them, pick a south-facing spot with good drainage, ideally on a slight slope, and clear the grass and foliage. Push bamboo canes into the exposed soil for extra nesting opportunities. Other species, including some sorts of bumblebee, prefer the shade. Many will nest in upturned plant pots or among the loose mortar of old stone walls. If you can, create a nearby water source too – all bees need to drink.

5. The best of the pest: avoid pesticides

Insecticides can be deadly to bees. Instead, deter pests in a natural way wherever possible, with companion planting or by providing habitat that will attract beneficial insects naturally. For example, you could plant a ‘wild area’ of long grass and wildflowers to attract ladybirds and hoverflies, which eat aphids, as well as helping the bees.

Read more: Buzzing for the big count: putting the bee back in Britain
Read more: Why I love bees: five enthusiasts spill the buzz

Brands of Inspiration: this article has been created by Positive News and supported by Ecotricity

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An ambitious plan to turn London into the world’s first national park city has received the backing of the mayor, Sadiq Khan, and the majority of ward counsellors. It could now happen by 2019, and campaigners are calling on Londoners to back it by ‘rewilding’ as much of the urban landscape as possible.

“Already 47 per cent of the city is physically green because of our parks and gardens, and 2.5 per cent is blue because of our waterways,” said Daniel Raven-Ellison, founder of the London National Park City campaign. “We only need 0.5 per cent more green space to ensure that half of London is either green or blue.”

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Installing green roofs, replacing concrete in gardens and putting plant pots on balconies could help the city reach the milestone, he said.

“Just letting part of gardens go feral is wonderful for wildlife. If everyone was to turn just 1 square metre of their home or garden into a green space, more of London would be green than grey.”

A former geography teacher, Raven-Ellison founded the campaign four years ago, after visiting all 15 of the UK’s national parks with his son.

“I thought ‘why shouldn’t an urban area be a national park?’,” he said.

St Paul’s Cathedral at springtime. Image: Jacob Hilton

The London Assembly, the Mayor of London and 53 per cent of the city’s ward councillors appear to agree and, by February 2018, had lent the campaign their backing. While the status will not bring any planning powers or add layers of bureaucracy, said Raven-Ellison, it will ‘add value’, by rebranding London as an ecological centre as well as a political, financial and cultural hub.

The capital has more than 3,000 parks, 1,600 sites of importance for nature conservation, two National Nature Reserves and 3.8m gardens. According to researchers Vivid Economics, London’s green spaces save the NHS £950 million each year due to the physical and mental boost they give to people.

“What a moment for London,” said author Robert Macfarlane, who writes about people’s connection with nature. “This is a celebration of the wealth of biodiversity and greenness that the city holds, and a vision for the future of how to deepen and improve our relations with the living world.”

Big Ben in the spring. Image: Ming Jun Tan

While acknowledging challenges that remain ahead, Raven-Ellison said it is an opportunity to look at London differently. It could make businesses, public services and residents rethink the way they interact with urban nature, he said.

“It’s about encouraging more people to spend more time outdoors and facing up to challenges such as air pollution and the decline of species. These are things that we have power over.”

Featured image: Hans Veth

This article is featured in issue 93 of Positive News magazine. Subscribe now to get the magazine delivered to your door each quarter.

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Unwind a tape measure all the way out to 5 metres and imagine that each metre is 100m years, each centimetre a million years and each millimetre 100,000 years. Suddenly, your tape measure is a timeline. Now have a look for the mark on the tape measure that represents 450m years – at 4.5m.

450 million years ago, (or thereabouts), the very first plants crept on to land and, in so doing, they allowed the very first animals to colonise the land too. They created the first organic soils and changed the atmosphere. They laid down the foundations for humanity to, eventually, evolve.

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Some 30 years ago, a boy sat under a huge monkey puzzle tree and imagined this strange early world, hardly able to comprehend the scale of time. For a boy of 10, the idea that there was a tree in his garden that belonged to an ancient family that had been grazed upon by dinosaurs was utterly mind-blowing. At 250cm on your tape measure, you’ll find the point at which the monkey puzzle tree started its evolution. The boy under that monkey puzzle tree was me.

The thoughts and ideas surrounding the vastness of evolutionary time have never left me and today, I grow a garden full of living plants that have a fossil record from deep in the ancient past.

I grow a garden full of living plants that have a fossil record from deep in the ancient past

Among them is a family that tells one of the greatest stories of our planet’s history. They are the protea family from the southern hemisphere. Amazingly, their 95m-year-old fossils can be found in all the southern continents, including Antarctica, and this ancient and modern distribution tells the story of the break-up of the supercontinent Gondwana that once contained all the southern lands.

The family contains species such as the King protea (Protea cynaroides) – the national flower of South Africa, and Macadamia (Macadamia integrifolia) – the source of those nutritious nuts by the same name. There are more than 1,660 species in the protea family and many of them are seriously threatened with extinction. Having evolved to fit into very small environmental niches, as climate change takes hold and the human population expands, their numbers in areas like the (megadiverse) Western Cape of South Africa are plummeting. I decided that I couldn’t sit back and watch as the proteas perished.

In South Africa with leucospermum conocarpodendron

As a professional horticulturist, I had the skills to do something practical that may help this ancient family of plants. So, in 2015 my partner and I, working with CapeNature (The Western Cape Nature Conservation Board) and supported by Stellenbosch University Botanical Gardens, headed to South Africa. We were in search of the high-altitude members of the protea family to bring them into cultivation here in Wales. The Welsh climate is surprisingly like that of their mountain homes. We visited places rarely frequented by man, staying in mountain huts or camping in our little two-man tent. We collected seeds of 30 members of this iconic family of plants; some of which have never been grown outside of South Africa.

With the help of crowdfunding we set up a small nursery so that we can research the cultivation of these difficult plants and others, introducing them to cultivation and informing future efforts to protect them by means of ex-situ (away from the natural habitat) conservation.

Those two millimetres make me take stock and realise just how special biodiversity is and how insignificant in it all I am

Now look at the tape measure timeline and see the first two millimetres at the very tip. They represent the 200,000 years that humanity has been on this planet – a miniscule fragment of the timeline of life on Earth. Those two millimetres make me take stock and realise just how special biodiversity is and how insignificant in it all I am. It puts into perspective the trials of day-to-day life.

It’s that two millimetres that pushes me to try and make sure, in my own small way, that millions of years of plant evolution isn’t wiped out in what is just a mere moment in the history of life on earth.

All images by Ben Ram

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Welcome to Keats’ ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’: early autumn chills on hazy mornings, the smell of nature’s seasonal perfume of mulching vegetation and the first crunchy leaves underfoot. But, before succumbing to the hibernation urge, there are a few of things you can do to help nature survive the coming winter. Don’t worry about doing too much though – less work equals more wildlife in your garden.

1. Don’t over tidy your autumn garden

Image: Ben Hall (rspb-images.com)

At this time of year, it’s important to avoid the urge to cut back and tidy too much – it’s more beneficial for nature to leave any decaying plants intact, as they create a cosy layer for garden mammals and insects to snuggle down in when winter hits. Hollowed stems and seedheads also provide a safe insect hideaway holes from frosts.

If you have any dead wood in your autumn garden, or if you’re already sweeping up rust coloured leaves, gather them into a pile in a corner of your green space – again insects and small mammals, including our struggling hedgehogs, will thank you for creating a snug home for them.

2. Let ivy thrive

Ivy is one of the best plants for your garden wildlife all year round, but especially during autumn and winter. Whereas most nectar rich plants are starting to die off, ivy’s flowers are only just beginning to blossom, providing a vital late source of food for bees, butterflies and other pollinators. Ivy’s evergreen leaves offer crucial shelter for birds and insects even throughout the colder months, when other natural cover is thinning out.

And don’t forget ivy’s ripe, winter jewels – its berries. These are a crucial, calorie-rich source of food for your feathered garden friends, just when they need that extra energy hit to enable them to maintain their body temperatures. If you do one thing this autumn, nurture your garden ivy – and if you don’t have one, plant one!

3. Don’t be fooled by disappearing birds

Ray Kennedy (rspb-images.com)

During September, you may worry where your much-loved garden birds have gone as the well-stocked feeders lay unattended. But fear not, this is a totally natural occurrence at the beginning of autumn. Nature’s hedgerows are now studded with blackberries and other fruit – all delicious to garden birds. Birds will always favour feeding directly from nature’s pantry, so whilst her stocks are bountiful you will naturally see a drop in garden feeder visitations.

However, keep their food and water sources topped up, because as soon as temperatures drop and the berry crop dwindles, your favourite garden birds will be back to your feeders in abundance. They rely on your high-energy, high-fat winter food to fuel them through the colder months.

4. Look out for unexpected house guests

Grahame Madge (rspb-images.com)

In the lead-up to winter you may spot either a small tortoiseshell or peacock butterfly perched on the wall in a corner of a room in your house, unmoving – having entered their winter dormant stage. But as temperatures continue to drop outside and our central heating is turned on, these butterflies can be woken up too early by the increased temperatures, which fool them into thinking spring has sprung early.

This isn’t a good thing for a butterfly as their outside environment is too cold and offers little nectar for them to eat. If you spot an early rising butterfly in your home, catch the butterfly carefully and move it to an unheated room or outdoor building which it can easily escape from in the spring.

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