A fantastic winning entry for Nellsar in Bloom’s wildlife engagement September challenge
Back in the spring we launched ‘Nellsar in Bloom’ – our gardening festival, which aimed to encourage our residents and staff to embrace their gardens and outdoor spaces, or bring gardening indoors. We were looking for creativity and involvement and had a number of categories to enter, including Grow your own strawberries in June, Unusual flower container in July and Themed garden in August.
Our September category was Wildlife engagement; we wanted our Homes to encourage ‘all creatures great and small’ into their gardens and help them to thrive through feeders, planting and housing. From hedgehogs to butterflies, bird feeders to bug hotels, we were excited to see how our Homes encouraged, embraced and enjoyed their wildlife.
We are delighted to announce that the team at Loose Valley Care Home are our winners!
Loose Valley: The Bug Hotel
The team at Loose Valley created their wonderful Bug Hotel using a foundation of pallets and then anything they could find by foraging in their garden! Moss, stones, pine cones, twigs, bamboo, terracotta pieces, roofing tiles and straw from their rabbits – a perfect hotel environment, fit for all bugs.
Their residents really enjoyed assembling this large structure for their bugs to enjoy and they are very proud of their creation.
Recreation and Well-Being Champions, Paula and Hayley commented;
“We were playing scrabble in the conservatory and the bug hotel is outside of the window. A little bug walked across the table and we remarked that the hotel was in the other direction!”
Recreation and Well-Being Manager Viv Stead was delighted with their efforts:
“Loose Valley’s Bug Hotel is so impressive. I love it that so many residents took part in its construction and that it is now going to part of the ever growing menagerie there!”
Congratulations to the residents and staff at Loose Valley for your brilliant creativity and teamwork! A prize is on its way to you!
Well done to our runners up at Abbotsleigh Care Home, with their ‘Abugsleigh’ bug hotel.
