Wilder Salford 

2024 has seen us ramping up the rewilding game. We’ve been in touch with several primary schools in the Salford area, and of the three which responded, we have helped to rewild two areas of school playing field. One school saw every pupil plant at least two trees each around the edge of their football pitch, and their organiser given a plan to look after them in future with a newly created school gardening club. Another school allowed us to take the whole length of their school field and partition it off with natural woven fences, consisting of poles and woven infill from a variety of species of tree.  The land behind it was allowed to grow out into rough grass, and in another section we dug out space for a pond measuring about 2 x 4m, laid a liner down and allowed it to refill.  This land, measuring about 1/3 acre, has gone in about 6 months from shorn grass to a haven for all kinds of species – meadow foxtail, cocksfoot, sweet vernal grasses, willowherbs, ragwort and creeping thistle,  supporting (at the last count) 9 species of butterfly,  18 kinds of moth, different damselflies and grasshoppers and a variety of other lesser known insects.  The pond itself is supporting a host of diving beetles and already developing its own wildlife plant species, creeping buttercup having crept into the pond and made a new watery life for itself!

Below are some shots showing the site when first created, and then  6 months later: