A Wild Garden Grows

Inspired by the 2024 RHS visit to the Middleton in Bloom Fusilier display, the Friends set about creating a new Wild Garden nearby to showcase sustainable woodland planting.

Beginning in late 2024, the project has flourished through fortnightly volunteer sessions. Working around the stump of a felled Elm, volunteers identified 20 existing native species, reused logs and brash to form raised beds and a hugelkultur mound, and created a dead hedge boundary using Wild Harvest saplings donated by the Woodland Trust.

Highlights include:

– 100 Osier Willow planted in tribute to a 19th-century local basket works, now used for community crafts.
– Repurposed town centre planters filled with woodland flora: Sorrel, St John’s Wort, Cowslip, Betony, Yarrow, and more.
– A mini-meadow seeded in March, already blooming in its first season.
– Bird boxes, a willow archway, and shaded beds filled with Primrose, Ransoms, and Bluebells.

The group is also trialling propagation of the historic Lord Suffield apple—a cultivar created by local handloom weaver Thomas Thorp—as well as cloning local Black Poplars, including a rare female specimen.

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