Big Lottery Breathing Spaces Butterfly Garden

The Friends of Newton Park secured £6,900 from the Big Lottery Breathing Places Fund to create a Butterfly Garden out of the old Rose Garden. The project which was finally completed in November 2008 involved the following:

Designing a new planting scheme, using plants that are attractive to butterflies and other wildlife and appeal to a variety of senses;

• The design was duly created for us by Hulme Community Garden Centre and involves using each of the four beds to support different needs of butterflies and moths;
  
  
  • An open Woodland area of small native trees and shrubs providing shelter and food for butterflies and birds. Underplanting with low growing, shade tolerant plants increases the cover for wildlife and hence diversity. Fruit trees and bushes will also provide a healthy snack for human visitors. A large woodpile was originally included to provide homes for small mammals, especially hedgehogs and mini habitats for many other animals and insects, but, because of vandalism, had to be replaced by one small tree trunk sunk into the ground to prevent removal.
    
    
  • The Night Garden will provide an area dedicated to providing the favourite food plants of the sometimes neglected night-flying moths. Some structure and interest will remain in the winter months and a butterfly house and solar powered insect theatre will provide an additional educational function.
    
    
  • The Meadow will provide an essential open area of beautiful native grasses and some now rare flowers suited to the locality and conditions and particularly attractive to butterflies and other insects.
    
    
  • The Herb Garden, which is the largest bed, contains a wealth of beneficial herbs. Many are evergreen providing interest and structure through the winter. This area includes a rockery to provide the ideal habitat for certain plants and insects and create a basking area for butterflies to warm up on sunny mornings. A puddling area is also included.
    
    
  • Finally, bat and bird boxes attached to the surrounding taller trees will provide safe nesting and roost sites. 'Bug Hotels' placed within the hedges will provide many more places for mini beasts to shelter.
    

Clearing the four existing beds and insituting the new planting scheme; This was a mammoth task, involving local volunteers, Trafford MBC workmen and, for the final last push, students from the Manchester universities. At times it seemed as though it would never be achieved, owing to the bad weather and random acts of vandalism, such as pulling up all the shrubs, but we perserved and look forward to next year to see the results of our labour.

Repairing the paths and creating two new entrances to the garden to increase accessability and reduce vandalism.

Creating and installing a wildlife sculpture - The original scheme called for a wooden wildlife sculpture in the centre of the garden, but it quickly became apparent that this was not feasible and a number of options were considered - including a metal windvane! Eventually we decided to install a concrete birdbath discovered by the Friends Chair at the local skip and, instead (and with the lottery fund's kind permission), use the money to hire a wood carver to work his magic with a dead and dying tree next to the play area.

The installation of an interpretation board and the creation of interpretation information - This can now be seen at the entrance to the garden.