As some of you may have seen on Twitter, Peter Thain, our course leader for Sports Therapy has recently spent the last couple of months turning his front garden into a gorgeous floral meadow!
If you’re on Twitter, you will have noticed that Peter’s tweet about his new passion project went viral, with over 30,000 likes. After the success of his tweet, Peter commented:
“Following the heatwave of 2018, my front garden looked like the Sahara desert! I have a larger garden in the front than in the back of the house, so rather than having a mono-culture of a lawn, I wanted to be bold and do something different – something the wildlife (including our cat!) would enjoy.
The meadow recently came into its own and is abundant with bees, butterflies and the odd hedgehog. I’m just a novice gardener, but I’m happy to speak with anyone wishing to do something similar or you can view the progress on my Instagram ‘@evening_gardener’. Happy gardening!”
Not only are meadow’s a sight for sore eyes, but they also have great benefits for the environment around us. We spoke to Aldo Mussi, tutor for BSc Public Health, who gave us some of the reasons why:
- Pollinators such as bees and hoverflies are essential for our own food security.
- As long as agriculture remains so artificial, gardens can form an important oasis for wildlife.
- Insects and wildflowers are important for our own biodiversity and well-being. We need to move on from such ‘sterile’ gardens and rediscover our connection with nature.
- Lawns are often unhealthily high maintenance – the herbicides, fertilisers, energy for mowing and clippings are often not utilised for compost energy.
- Green infrastructure in urban areas also helps to ‘filter’ some of our air pollution.
- That said, even traditional front lawns are at least an improvement on paving which can cause easy flooding and a loss of wildlife.
Feeling inspired?
Interested in finding out more about how our environment affects us? Check out our Health Studies (Public Health) course - available to be studied full-time and part-time to suit you.
