Wild About Gardens Week 2016

Wild About Gardens Week 2016

Wild About Gardens Week 2016 is a joint initiative by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), The Wildlife Trusts and Bat Conservation Trust to Encourage people to support wildlife in their gardens, with a focus on our UK bats. This is more important than ever. In 2013, wildlife researchers found that 60 percent of UK animal and plant species have declined in the past 50 years. Among the variety of reasons for this is loss of habitat. There are an estimated 15 million gardens in the UK. Together they cover a greater area than all the National nature reserves! By making our own gardens and local green spaces more wildlife-friendly, we can help support a wide range of species.

The Wild About Gardens website has lots of batty information including how to identify the most common bat species you are likely to spot in your gardens.

Wild About Gardens Week runs from 24-30 October 2016. This year we'll be looking at steps we can take to support bats and other wildlife. But don't wait until October! There are lots of things you can do right now to support wildlife in your garden or community green space.

The Plant a bat feast competition heralds the start of a campaign to improve the fortunes of the UK's bats. It runs from 11 July-6 November 2016. It's easy to enter: simply choose a range of insect-friendly plants, watch them grow and email us (wildaboutgardensweek.org.uk) a photo!

We've created some fantastic resources to help you along the way, from building insect hotels to creating hedgehog highways. There are plenty of fun activities you can do throughout the year to help your local wildlife. For even more wildlife gardening tips, visit the Wild About Gardens website for ideas on things that can be done in an hour, a day or a weekend. And to be kept in the loop about plans for this year's Wild About Gardens Week, send us an email and we'll contact you as soon as there's more information available.