Plant it up, plug it in, get the bees in

Five GG Yorkies joined the volunteers at St Nick's to plant wildflowers in one of the meadows.

Tom was particularly pleased to get a lesson in how to plant plug plants properly as he's been enlisted to teach some children to do just that in a few weeks time.

I was just going to blag it! (Tom)

After a dicey start for Charlotte and Lindsay, who'd picked up the most flimsy trowels in the world, we soon got into the rhythm. We had to pop the plugs out of the pots, dig a hole in the grass just deep enough to house the wildflower plugs, fluff up the roots and then pack the earth around it firmly, aiming for about 6 of the same plant in little clumps across the meadow.

Once all of the plugs had been planted, Maria took us to find some cowslips to dig up, and transplant to the meadow.

Given that we'd been asked to bring as much of the soil around the cowslip roots as possible, we weren't sure what to do with the ground we'd dug up to make room for them, apart from stand around looking confused! Charlotte eventually camouflaged hers by stamping it into the meadow.

We'll be back soon to check out how much the bees and other pollenators are enjoying their new and improved meadow!