Belfast Business Plant Stories: Fieldday Ireland
We set up FieldDay back in 2002 to capture and bottle the scents of the Irish countryside; creating fragrance to inspire and connect you to nature. We’ve been long time financial supporters of Ulster Wildlife and were keen to take our partnership to the next level! We love Ulster Wildlife and all they do; looking after our wild places and wildlife, while also encouraging and educating at the same. We really believe that businesses can and should be a force for good in helping to conserve nature for future generations. That’s why we jumped at the chance to sponsor Ulster Wildlife’s ‘Let Nature In’ campaign! It just felt like a great fit for our ethos at FieldDay.
Through the partnership you have pledged to support Ulster Wildlife’s ambitious goal of inspiring 5,000 households to get involved with the Let Nature In wildlife gardening campaign. Can you tell us a bit more about the campaign?
With 1 in 10 species at risk of extinction in Northern Ireland, we’re encouraging at least 5,000 local households to take action; creating a network of wildlife friendly spaces to help nature thrive! Whether you have a large or small garden, ledge or yard, your garden could be a crucial piece of the jigsaw to help nature recover. Our connection to nature is much more important than we may think; nature is not a luxury but it is in-fact essential to our humanity and health. We absolutely need wildlife and wild places to thrive! By creating more space for nature, we can create a better world for everyone. Whatever kind of garden you have you can make space for nature! A garden for wildlife doesn’t have to be a scruffy jungle either, it can be lots of mini wildlife habitats that come together to create a space for all.
Any easy tips on how people can make their own gardens more wildlife-friendly?
The amount of wildlife on our doorsteps is astounding but is increasingly being lost to hard surfacing, plastic grass and paving.
Here are a few of our favourite ways to ‘Let Nature In’ to your garden!
- Dig a pond! Adding a water feature or pond is the single most effective way to welcome wildlife to your garden. Even the smallest pond will attract frogs, newts and dragonflies. Make sure it has at least one sloping side so creatures can climb out safely. If you have limited space, a large half barrel or inverted dustbin lid filled with water works well.
- Let areas go to seed. Leave dead flower heads intact or during Autumn and Winter so birds can feed on the seeds.
If your garden is enclosed, consider cutting a small 13 x 13cm hole at the bottom of the fence to create a ‘hedgehog highway’ for wandering hedgehogs. - Stop mowing a patch of your lawn or trim it every 4 weeks to let daisies, clover and wildflowers bloom for pollinators.
- Plant native flowers so that insects have nectar to feed on. Even a small garden can have a hanging basket, window boxes and plant pots.
- Ditch pesticides. Avoid using insecticides, weed killers and artificial slug pellets which can harm insects, birds, frogs and toads.
- Set up a bird bath using a simple shallow dish to provide drinking and bathing water for local birds. Change water regularly and add some sticks and stones for any wildlife to rest on.
- Add a bird feeder. The birds will really flock to your garden and tell their friends too! Remember to clean it regularly.
- Create a woodpile! Many insects such as butterflies, spiders, slaters and wasps use woodpiles as a place to hide and hibernate through the colder months.
- Nettles are good! Although we’re not fond of their stings, nettles are extremely important for biodiversity. Lots of butterfly species are very fond of nettles. Not only using the plants as a source of food, but also to lay their eggs on them.
Can you tell us a bit about your collaboration with lifestyle and design store Maven?
We’ve been supplying Maven for many years with our home fragrance collections. With our Ulster Wildlife collaboration we were keen to show that business and particularly retail stores can also do their bit to ‘let Nature In’ too; it’s not just our gardens at home, businesses can do their bit too! We saw Maven were selling gorgeous HAY plant pots and thought it would be lovely to fill them with native pollinators and place them outside their beautiful lifestyle store on the Lisburn Road in Belfast. We filled 5 large planters in May and watched them explode with colour and blooms outside on the street attracting loads of bees and butterflies. It’s been a lovely collaboration and a pleasure to work with Maven on this – and sharing the endless watering of the pots! It was such a warm summer and they needed a LOT of water to thrive. Happy to say we are making plans to add plants for Autumn to continue what we’ve started!
Finally, how can people get involved with the campaign?
Register at ulsterwildlife.org/let-nature-in where you can download a digital pack. Once you’ve joined the ‘Let Nature In’ community, you’ll receive seasonal newsletters with top tips to help bring nature back into your garden. Oh and you’ll also get 10% off FieldDay products too!
