This stunning wildlife garden was called the BBC Springwatch Garden. It featured at RHS Hampton Court Flower Show 2019 was designed by award winning garden designer Jo Thompson alongside wildlife writer Kate Bradbury.

It was chock full of ideas on how people can make their gardens more wildlife friendly.

The 3 Gardens

Created as a feature garden for the show, it highlights the issue of the decline in the UK’s wildlife. There are 3 separate gardens depicted within it, all of which provide a haven for wildlife.

The idea behind the garden is to encourage neighbours to work together and support wildlife. This is because recent research indicates that private gardens in Britain cover an area bigger than all of the country’s nature reserves combined.

The First Garden

The garden represents 3 different gardens belonging to 3 different families. Each garden is connected to the next through a series of wildlife corridors. The idea is that they allow insects, birds and animals to travel between the gardens.

The first garden has a cottage feel to it with a wildflower meadow. This is to encourage wildlife and it also features a small table and chairs that are surrounded by bug hotels, bird feeders and bird boxes. It is designed to encourage people to let their gardens grow wild to increase the diversity of plants. It also shows how we can easily provide homes for bugs and birds.

The Second Garden

The second garden contains a lawn with daisies and clover. These are nectar-rich plants for bees. However these plants are normally considered weeds but this garden is encouraging us to allow them to grow. It also features a curved dry-stone bench to encourage bugs to nest. At the back of the garden there is a small pond that trickles as a steam into the next door garden and provides drinking water for wildlife.

Both the 10-20mm and the 4-10mm of our Cotswold Chippings, along with Duck Egg Pebbles have been used to decorate around the pond area and in front of the dry-stone bench.

The Third Garden

The third garden features more ornamental planting with a pear tree and a small vegetable patch. It also includes a bench, which provides a place to sit and watch the birds in the bird bath.  Our Cotswold gravel has been used again and is mixed into the ground to create the rustic looking path that winds through the garden.

This wonderful wildlife garden at Hampton Court provides a fantastic example of how we can easily provide mini nature reserves for wildlife. Our video below delves deeper into this fantastic garden.