What is 30 Days Wild?
The Wildlife Trusts' annual nature challenge 30 Days Wild encourages people to do one 'wild' thing each day throughout June. The Wildlife Trusts' website has a free pack available to download with activities you can complete in your home or garden or around where you live. Spending time in green space and close to nature is more than really good fun – according to the charity Mind it has benefits for our mental health and wellbeing.
How to get involved
We partnered with The Wildlife Trusts to create our Nature for People biodiversity strategy, which shapes the design our developments. We provide green spaces, nature trails and diverse wildlife habitats to make it easy to enjoy the benefits of the great outdoors. We also link our new homes with local parks, cycle ways and footpaths so you can easily access the nature in your local area and travel around more sustainably.
These features mean that it’s easy to take part in 30 Days Wild if you live in a Redrow home. Suggested activities all the family can enjoy include:
- Listening to the morning or evening bird song
- Bird spotting in your garden or local green space
- Taking a stroll along a nature trail. You could even create a map of local wildlife you spot during your adventures
- Taking off your shoes and going barefoot in the grass or earth
- Visiting your local green space at dusk to look for bats
- Exercising outdoors – this doesn’t have to be running or cycling but include yoga or testing out some of the outdoor gym equipment we provide on selected developments
- Hugging a tree
- Exploring a Wildlife Trust nature reserve
How can gardening help the environment?
There are lots of acts of wildness you can carry out in your garden to help make it a natural sanctuary for wildlife. Children’s Gardening Week (May 27 – June 4) and Garden Wildlife Week both coincide with 30 Days Wild and planting the seed for a love of nature and gardening now can have a lifelong impact on their habits and the planet. Little ones will love digging up the soil ready for planting. Giving them the job of watering will help teach them a sense of responsibility while having fun. Read on for our guide to how to attract wildlife to your garden.
1. Create a buzz
Bumblebees are vital to our health as they help to pollinate many of the fruits and vegetables we grow in the UK. By creating bumblebee havens around our developments and in your gardens, we can all play our part to support bees.
Bee kind to the bees by choosing nectar-rich plants that provide food for bumblebees. Ideal early summer flowers include allium, catmint, poppy, snapdragon, sweet pea and thyme, while perfect late summer flowers include buddleia, cornflower, echinacea, honeysuckle and lavender.
2. Help your feathered friends
Providing a water source, such as a pond, and regularly topping up bird feeders is a great place to start. Remember to position feeders in a sheltered spot that is hard to reach for cats or pests. You can even buy or make your own bird box to give nesting birds a safe place to call home. Hanging on the edge of a shed or garage will provide an ideal viewing point to watch your flying visitors, while larger birdboxes may be better suited to hedgerows or trees.
The flowers of a honeysuckle attract a range of insects and provide a night-time nectar for moths, while its berries provide food and shelter for thrushes, warblers and bullfinches. Ivy leaves provide food for caterpillars, plus nesting or roosting shelter for birds, while insects feed off its flowers and birds from its berries.
3. Let it grow
An easy way to attract wildlife into your garden is to ‘say no to the mow’ by cutting back on lawn maintenance and encouraging wildflowers to grow. Adopting a two-cut approach to your lawn by mowing in the autumn and spring will create a meadow effect that will immediately attract neighbouring wildlife. Alternatively, you could turn a patch of your garden into a meadow by plant wildflower seeds after adding fresh soil. Mixed seeds are guaranteed to attract a host of new neighbours!
4. Create a hedgehog highway
The average hedgehog can travel almost a mile and a half a night in search of food and a safe place to sleep. Fences and garden walls can make it hard for a hedgehog to visit new places. If your neighbours agree, making small holes under garden fences or in walls will allow easy access points for hedgehogs to get around – and if you make a larger bug hotel, they may even become a full-time resident too.
5. Make your own compost
Creating your own compost isn’t quite as simple as throwing your garden and some food waste into a bin and waiting – you’ll need to turn it occasionally. Composting offers a means of recycling that will help reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill. A community of minibeasts and insects will live among the waste and help with the decaying process. These smaller creatures will increase the organic content in your soil and provide a delicious food source for hedgehogs and larger visitors to your garden. To create your own compost, you’ll need a compost bin, positioned in a corner of your garden in which to mix green waste and brown material in equal parts. It can take as little as six weeks to create compost but leaving it longer and turning occasionally will provide better organic material. It will be ready to use when it’s crumbly and black.
Redrow communities are created to be sustainable, vibrant places to live. Learn more about where better begins.
