Urban Buzz is nearing the end of the first year of habitat creation in York. We have already created 41Buzzing Hotspots towards our aim for a city wide total of 100. They range from planting stunning wildflowers in the grassland at Millennium Bridge to under planting woodland in York Museum Gardens, and from Snowdrops and Crocus at Kingsway North in Clifton to the vibrant wildflowers at Glen Mosaic Garden in Heworth.
Andrew Cutts, Buglife’s Urban Buzz Officer said, “Glen Mosaic Garden has been the talk of York as it has been awash with colour with its new wildflower meadow this summer. Buglife is looking for local help to create the 100 Buzzing Hotspots. Crucially they provide the all important food sources of pollen and nectar for a range of insect pollinators.”
The wildflowers at Glen Mosaic Garden have now seeded and the site scythed ready to allow for a similar spectacular show next summer. Planting continues across York with the current focus on spring bulbs and trees. We are going strong but the project still urgently needs to raise £5,000 to ensure that its ambitious target can be met. The project is encouraging people to donate online and undertake sponsored challenges or events and donate the funds to the project.
Andrew continued, “We’ve lots planned for spring 2017 and there are lots of opportunities to get involved. We still need to raise money in the city to ensure that we can meet our 100 sites target. York Urban Buzz is putting out a call to individuals and businesses that want to help. It might be sponsoring one of our sites or getting involved in a sponsored seed sowing or giant bee nest building. By doing this you could help raise some money to give bees a better home!”
We also have a chance of winning £25,000 from the Aviva Community Fund which would enable yet more Buzzing Hotspots to be created in York and partner cities Birmingham, Cardiff, and Plymouth. To win this fantastic sum of money we need your help! Please visit the Aviva Community Fund website and vote for Urban Buzz. You can vote up to 10 times and we need around 10,000 votes to reach the final. Once you’ve voted please share with your friends, family, neighbours, colleagues, and everyone else you know. Together we can make a real difference for insect pollinators and make urban environments more pleasant places for people too.
Working in partnership with City of York Council, York Urban Buzz is making York’s parks better for bees, butterflies, and other pollinators by planting wildflowers, planting trees for bees, opening ‘bee hotels’ and much more. The brilliant thing about this is that by making our parks better for bees we will have stunning and inspiring parks for us all to enjoy.
