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Photo: Opening of the Wild Bee Garden

A new Wild Bee Garden for London Borough of Newham

Project workers stood around for the opening of the wild bee garden in the London borough of Newham

2 November 2023

In partnership with the London Borough of Newham, we have created a Wild Bee Garden to benefit local wild pollinators and the local community. Senior Conservation Officer Bex Cartwright explains how this thriving habitat was created.

Back in January 2023, we were approached by the Parks and Green Spaces team at Newham Council, inviting us to help with the creation of a feature garden to showcase wild bees. The garden was one of four feature areas to be created as part of a wider project to create a pollinator trail along the length of Newham Greenway, a public footpath and cycleway which extends 7km from Victoria Park in Tower Hamlets to Royal London Docks. The Greenway is a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC). We were delighted to be part of the project!

The plot for the wild bee garden is approximately 10 x 10m and started out as an area of rough grass and bramble with few flowers. The plot is connected by grassland and flowering trees and scrub that joins a local community orchard. We wanted to add as many features for wild bees as possible to the garden including nesting habitat alongside abundant sources of pollen and nectar that would provide food for a range of wild bees throughout the year.

The final design and planting includes a native mixed species hedgerow, flowering shrubs such as flowering currant and honeysuckle. A herbaceous border and ‘brownfield’ style planting where drought-tolerant plants have been planted and seeded into recycled, crushed aggregate material. A perennial wildflower meadow area is also in development which complements the meadow species that run the length of the 7km greenway. We have also included specimen trees such as a pussy willow and wildflowers such as primroses to provide spring forage. The aggregate mounds also act as nesting habitat for ground-nesting bees and wooden totems have been installed to provide homes for cavity nesting bees. The hedgerow base, meadow and surrounding grasslands will provide nesting sites for bumblebees.

A wonderful local community artist who is also a London National Park City Ranger designed a series of engaging interpretation panels for the garden which illustrate a range of solitary bees and bumblebees and explain their lifecycles as well as their nesting and feeding needs.

Surveys of the garden have taken place throughout the process and the bees were very quick to start using the new range of resources provided! Exciting sightings include species of bumblebee including the scarce Brown-banded carder bumblebee (Bombus humilis) and solitary bees such as the Black mining bee and Wool carder bee.

The Greenway Pollinator Trail and Wild Bee Garden were generously funded by the Mayor of London’s Rewild London Fund.

Thanks to Anna Yusuf and the Newham Council Parks and Green Spaces Grounds Maintenance team who put in all of the hard work landscaping and planting the garden and invited us to be part of this project. Thanks also to Trust volunteer George for his design and drawing skills, and community artist Matt Ponting for the amazing interpretation work.

You can read more about the Newham Greenway Pollinator Trail Project.