The Friends Group have been awarded a Community Pollinator Grant Fund Award in 2023 from the West of England Combined Authority.
The Friends Group was established in 2020 and has raised funding from Siston Parish Council, Oldland Common Parish Council, and from open day fees and talks, running 4 days in 2022. Many local people who have visited when the grotto is open have commented that they have been completely unaware of this local green space on their doorstep. A regular monthly working group has tidied the garden, removed saplings, planted over a thousand bulbs, and created a small community orchard of 13 heritage apple trees in January 2022. We have worked with South Glos Council to get new benches and hedges in the garden. The garden is a key part of the South Glos Common’s Connection Project which has provided bat boxes, wildflower plugs and signage in 2023.
The grant will allow the Friends to build on what we have done over the coming year to:
- improve the biodiversity of the site
- support the work done by the Commons Connection Project by planting moth friendly plants for the bat population in the grotto
- enhance signage and awareness of the site so that more local people are aware of and use the garden and linked woodland
- develop the site as a venue for social prescribing in the locality
We will plant additional bulbs and early spring flowering plants for pollinators such as hellebores and pulmonarias, native flower plugs of primroses and cowslips on the mound and in the orchard.
We will add plug plants of moth friendly nectar and larval plants throughout the site such as honeysuckle, dog rose, foxgloves, marjoram, evening primrose and ox-eye daisy. We will build a large pallet-based insect hotel next to the orchard, and erect solitary bee hotels on posts adjacent to the wall by the orchard.
We want to raise local awareness of this important green site by reprinting and updating the leaflet about the garden and distributing it to local people, and to get enhanced signage that can be used both on open days (when the grotto is open) and all year round to promote this public open space owned by S Glos.