The plants have been growing on well since the volunteer planting day, and it is now time for the Bee Cafes to leave the Katie's Garden nursery for their new homes across Woodbridge.
The 10 stations will get set up across the week with official launch day with the mayor on Friday 1st March - the first day of spring!
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Some of the volunteers from the planting-up day at Katies's Garden on 31st January tell Caroline why they got involved.
Katie's Garden owner Susie Davis talks Caroline through the plants selected for the spring Bee Cafes.
Paul talks Caroline through how the Bee Cafes are constructed, and how the clever watering systems in them work to make maximum use of rainfall.
Caroline Saunders chats to Bee Cafe mastermind Paul Martin to find out what inspired him to start the project!
Woodbridge gardener Caroline Saunders visited Katie's Garden to find out more about the Bee Cafe planters and to take part in the planting-up day.
Thank you very much to our volunteer teams who came and joined us at the nursery this Sunday! The delightful dozen made great progress planting up the many bottles needed for Woodbridge's new bee cafe planters - around 300 in fact! Paul Martin explained how the planters work and how they will become part of the Woodbridge link of the national Bee Corridor.
 At the request of Woodbridge Town Council, which is funding the project, all the plants in the bee cafes will be native to the UK. For spring 2024 the planters will feature a mixture of flowering bulbs and perennials, including: Crocus, Muscari (grape hyacinths), English Bluebells Primula (cowslips), Violas, Cardamine (cuckoo flower), Wallflowers, Myosotis (forget-me-nots) With a colour scheme in the bees' preferred purples and yellows!
Bees and other pollinators are in dramatic decline across the UK, partly due to urbanisation of their habitat.
Bee Cafe Planters are specifically designed to fill urban "pollen gaps" with bee-friendly blooms from spring to autumn. Woodbridge's urban chain of Bee Cafes are planned to connect with the national bee corridor network, allowing our bees to move around, find more food and escape climate change. Click here to find out more about bee corridors. We are keeping busy potting up bulbs for spring flowers next year, including several special batches of bee-friendly varieties, including Crocus, English Bluebells and Grape Hyacinth Muscaris for the bee cafe project. If you want to help the bumblebees it is vital to have suitable flowers available all-year-round, and these early-flowering bulbs are great for when there isn't a lot in bloom.
We were delighted to welcome Paul Martin of the Gt Bealings Climate Emergency Rapid Response Squad to our Newbourne nursery today. We will be working with him over the coming months on an exciting new project that will have Woodbridge buzzing!  |
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