Pollinator Friendly Perennials Offer for Resident’s Gardens

‘Woodbridge Beepass’ encourages residents to become involved in bee conservation efforts.

May 20th is World Bee Day!!!  This is being marked by the launch of the ‘plant a pollinator pitstop’ a collaboration between the BeeCafe CIC and our local councils.  We are calling on local residents to assist us in completing the Woodbridge Beepass by hosting their own BeeCafe endorsed pollinator pitstop in their garden.

Supported with sponsorship from East Suffolk Council Community Partnerships and Woodbridge Town Council Climate and Ecological Emergency Committee.

Applications are invited from interested residents, in order to complete a 10 mile chain of pollinator pit stops approximately every 100M from Rushmere St Andrew through to Sutton linking the existing ‘Buglife, B-lines’. 

To do this we will be offering one subsidised pollinator perennial pack ready to go in residents gardens. Each pack features a bee friendly menu developed by Professor David Goulson (University of Sussex). and grown by local Newbourne Garden Centre, Katie’s Garden. There will be one pack available per linking postcode. Please look out for our social media adverts showing how to apply.

Brainchild of local ecology enthusiast Paul Martin, the original bee cafes were planters installed in Woodbridge, Rushmere St Andrew, Martlesham and Melton.  Each one tailored to its own environment with bug hotels, hedgehog hides and frog ramps, planted with a selection of bee friendly perennials, annuals and shrubs with some rare native plants too. Each Bee Cafe planter has been kindly adopted by local residents who care for them with support from Bee Cafe HQ and each other.

Quote from adopter Jennifer

‘one of the most pleasurable tasks of my day’

‘visitors to the cafe on Kingston enjoy watching the gardeners’

Quote from Professor David Goulson (University of Sussex)

“I'm delighted to write in support of Bee Café’s ambitious proposal to create a corridor of pollinator friendly plants. Insect pollinators such as bees perform a vital service, but are sadly in decline and need our help. The proposed habitat creation will help to link existing pollinator friendly patches, which is exactly what is needed to ensure a rosy future for pollinating insects.”

Quote from Stephen Molyneaux, East Suffolk Council

‘To see Paul’s ‘Bee Café’ initiative grow and grow in strength has been one of the many joys to witness having become a councillor. Seeing the project evolve from the proto-type models to where it is now, incorporating top scientific insights from Profession Peter Hobson and bee culinary delights supplied by Katies Garden Plant centre, is extraordinary. This is a positive, passionate, pro-active approach to our dwindling bio-diversity crisis, which is absolutely vital if we’re to narrowly avoid a death spiral in our wildlife.’

Quote from Mark Packard, East Suffolk Council

‘The Community Partnership in the Kesgrave, Martlesham and Villages is delighted to financially support the Wildlife Corridor that will run through it’s area. It is so important that we help set up areas where all sorts of wildlife can prosper and spread so that nature can rebuild after decades of being deprived of hedgerows and impacted by the use of pesticides’

Councillor Nigel Phipps, Mayor of Woodbridge says that " Woodbridge Town Council fully supports Paul and the Bee Cafe project. And Paul's wider contribution to our efforts to strengthen the Town's resilience to climate change is highly valued. We are always supportive of residents who come forward with projects to benefit Woodbridge".