As usual, our community gardening group, which meets on the first Saturday of each month, have been busy maintaining and improving Butterfly Junction and the surrounding area. It’s well worth a look at what they’ve achieved.

The cherry trees, planted by FrANC in January 2023, bloomed for the first time this spring and the flowers provided an early source of nectar and pollen for bees. The trees about twice the height they were when we planted them and the trunks are slowly increasing in girth.

The herb planters are now a year old and are full of colourful and useful herbs which looked particularly lush during the summer months. The bay tree, planted near them, is maturing well.

Unfortunately, someone defaced the Butterfly Junction sign in the summer and left a bunch of trash including the marker box they used. The sign had been left alone and respected for years until now. It took several sessions of white spirit and elbow grease from the dedicated community gardeners to remove the graffiti.

On a much more positive note, a much-appreciated grant from Secret Gardens has been used primarily to plant holly in the shady bits of the cycle path / walk way near the overpass. Hopefully this may attract a colony of Holly Blue butterflies in the future. Holly Blue is so named because it congregates around holly, primarily in the spring. By late summer, it chooses ivy, of which there’s plenty in the area.

If you would like to join our friendly group of volunteers, whether for a one-off session or for something more long-term, you’ll find details on the Community Gardening event page.