Current Projects

Over the past few Fridays we have been working with Slimbridge Parish Council to plant up a new hedgerow on top of a newly created earth mound (known as a ‘bund’) around the boundary of a new car park built by the parish council.

The hedgerow planting was made easier by the number of both the parish council’s and our own volunteers who attended the two planting sessions.

In total 540 plants!

Thanks to all the people who attended, yes, 540 hedgerow plants were dug-in on top of the car park boundary - six different types of hedgerow species that included Dogwood, Hazel, Spindle Berry and Hawthorn.

In time this hedgerow will offer shelter, diversity and habitat for a wide selection of wildlife to enjoy.

Photo by David Richards

 Kingswood Newt ponds and greenspaces

Since returning to the newt ponds at Kingswood at the end of August, the group have embarked on the biggest hedge laying project to date at this site.

The section of hedgerow - now 12 to 15 years old - planted as part of the Great Crested Newt mitigation, has in the past been cut by a tractor-driven hedge cutter.

As a result of this the hedge has grown with multi stems at chest height making the work/art of laying the hedge a slow but still positive experience for us all to enjoy.

We hope to finish this hedgerow project by New Year all being well.    Photo by David Richards

I’d like to say a big Thank You to all the volunteers (Julie, Ian, Rob, Jon, Dave and Dan) who have all still attended the Monday sessions through these different times. I would also like to thank the parish council for their continued support of the project.

It has been quite apparent through conversations with people in the local community that they have really valued the green spaces on their doorsteps, and this has been highlighted to them through the lockdowns.

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 Building Sensory Gardens with local communities

Our work at the Sensory Garden space at Stratford Park has continued at a steady pace with the group now only a few sessions away from completing the magnificent wooden seating in the amphitheatre area.

This piece of the sensory garden project has really tested all of us from the initial pencil drawings put together at the beginning of January 2020 with the first supporting posts of the seating installed in February before the first lockdown.

But since returning to work, the group has enjoyed and endured sun and rain to see the finishing line and complete the main seating area. 

Along with general maintenance of the garden area flower-beds and borders we hope to start on the final phase of seating that will top the amphitheatre. We intend to build five low level long seats made from Cedar of Lebanon and oak - timber felled or windblown from the park.

The project’s work at our outdoor base at the Beeches Day Care Centre, has continued with volunteers coming in on two shifts, with groups no bigger than six participants. The work, good humour and well-being that everyone on the Tuesday group is encouraged to be involved in really gets to the heart of what our work is all about.

The teams have been involved in several new projects on-site with a new design and build of Little Owl boxes, building a large raised bed to be used as a nursery and temporary home for hedgerow species, propagating Devil’s-bit scabious (thanks Sara G) for a Butterfly Conservation Trust project in the Stroud District and up-cycling garden tools donated to us via the eco shop.

Photos by Jon Haughton

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Our inter-generational team of volunteers, Wild Work, started back after the lockdown at the beginning of July. It was so lovely to see everyone again and was great to catch up! Since then it has been non-stop.

We have been back to all our old sites as well as starting off at some new. We have carried on with our work with Cainscross Parish Council at Queen Elizabeth II Field at Dudbridge managing the wildflower areas and pulling out some of the reeds, helping keep Rowcroft Medical Centre’s grounds under control and looking after our trees at Arundel Mill Pond. We also helped plant the beds outside Five Valleys Shopping Centre and raked up grass to help maintain wildflower rich grassland at Bisley Road Cemetery. We’re looking forward to helping with lots of tree planting this winter!

Every week is different and full of humour and companionship and it has been great to be back, despite the necessary changes due to social distancing.

Roll on 2021 when hopefully at some point we’ll all be able to share tea and biscuits again!

It’s been an interesting and challenging year at the Prinknash Abbey walled garden. Our team of volunteers worked hard over the winter to get the plot ready for cultivation, with the expectation of providing veg for the cooks to turn into great meals in the café for visitors to enjoy.

The pandemic had other ideas, and with the lockdown in March we were suddenly confronted with a closed café, no visitors, and no volunteers – but lots of plants to plant and ground to cover! 

Fortunately it was possible for Seb, the Project Officer to continue to keep things ticking over, thanks to the support of the Monastery Café. The work over the winter wasn’t completely wasted, and much of the ground was utilised for growing. Harvests were shared between staff able to carry on working at the site, people living on the Prinknash estate and the monks themselves.

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The Wild Shed group meets on a Thursday at the Beeches Day Centre in Cainscross. There are usually between six and eight volunteers. Between November and March we made bird boxes, cleaned the polytunnel from algae, made a bog garden, cleaned and sharpened tools and prepared hedgerow seeds for our fledgling tree nursery. We also planted two local variety apple trees (Ashmead’s Kernel and John Standish) and trained them into espalier trees.

Once a month we tended an allotment plot in Bisley where we filled up raised beds with compost, weeded the plot, planted fruit bushes, heeled in small saplings and prepared the raised beds for further planting. 

January was one of our highlights, as we visited the Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. As our funding did not quite stretch to having lunch in the café, we came prepared with our lunchboxes and flasks and were allowed to sit in the Peng Observatory watching geese and ducks while having our lunch. Some of the volunteers mentioned that without this trip they would not have been able to get there, as there is no public transport to get to

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We’ve always been keen to plant trees for wildlife, people and the   climate as part of our projects, but since 2019 we have had a project specifically aimed at planting trees in Gloucestershire.

It aims to link trees to sites and people who’d like to plant them. So far we have planted in schools, public green spaces, farms, parks and gardens.

If you have a piece of land that you think would be perfect for trees or you’d like to come and plant some with us, please get in touch with Tamsin, our Tree Project Officer, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

We offer advice and support as well as trees, planting workshops and people to plant them. We are now looking forward to a busy winter of tree planting.

Drought at Sarah’s Field, Berkeley

The very hot periods in the spring and summer caused water-loss to the ponds on this site. This led to concern, particularly as the field was so well-used as an educational and recreational space during the lockdown period.

Many families were invested in the well-being of newts, nymphs and diving beetles. Eventually, in late July, success was achieved with a water pump.

But a long-term solution is now to be sought with the backing of the town council, to automatically pump ground-water into the ponds using an agricultural solar-powered pump.

In a way, by replacing the water that the modern drainage system is removing, we will be re-wetting the habitat - surely a good thing!

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Our education project

                 Wild Classrooms - see our video here

Wild Classrooms is our educational project which aims to support children’s outdoor learning and builds on the foundations laid by our earlier educational projects, Get Growing and Growing Wild. It was launched in January 2017. Tamsin, the Wild Classroom project officer, developed free resources which link what’s going on outside with the primary science curriculum. These include five themed calendars which aim to help children learn about one plant or animal a month that they will hopefully be able to see without having to search too hard! They are made even more special by the use of photographs provided by local photographers including two young people, Duerden Cormack and Alfie Owen. We have had a great response from local schools and have even had schools as far away as Oxford and Lincolnshire requesting copies. The topics covered by the calendars are birds, butterflies, flowers, minibeasts and trees and they are a fun way for everyone to learn a little bit more about the natural world around them. In 2019 we added our interactive wildlife spotting website www.wildclassrooms.org.

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