This short video mixes photographs and short video clips which demonstrate the beauty of a suburban wildlife garden. It also offers a stark comparison to a house with the more commonly seen lawn front yard. This garden is certified at National Wildlife Federation Backyard Habitat and also includes a Pollinator Habitat sign from the Xerces [...]
Today’s Friday Film features an inside look at the New Wild Garden from the 2011 Chelsea RHS Flower Show designed by Nigel Dunnett filmed by Dusty Gedge. The garden features a great many elements for wildlife including a stone wall for habitat with built-in insect shelters as well as an insect wall for solitary bees and [...]
Today’s Friday Film features a green roof in Islington, London designed by Bere Architects, Kim Wilkie and Dusty Gedge. It’s been a great success in attracting wildlife including goldfinches, house sparrows, butterflies and a variety of bees. The video features photos of a variety of plants from the roof and many of the insects which make [...]
The City of Vancouver, in British Columbia, has a successful Green Streets program where residents adopt a corner bulge or traffic circle. The gardener then designs, plants and maintains their adopted garden for as long as they like which can be a single month or multiple years. I found this to be a fascinating project, [...]
When we talk about a nest box we usually envision a wooden structure, often in the shape of a human house, hanging from a tree in the backyard. However, if you talked about a nest box in the UK, they may have a different idea. The RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) has [...]
One of the most impressive green roofs in the country is the one on top of City Hall in Chicago. Part of the impressiveness comes from the fact that the building is over 100 years old and was not designed specifically to allow for the additional weight of a green roof. Many buildings can only [...]
There’s a fascinating project in Zurich that is integrated with a major railway. While planning an expansion to the railway, it was discovered that the area was a sensitive habitat area and they had to come up with a creative way to avoid disturbance. The area alongside the tracks had developed it’s own unique, desert-like [...]
Over on the BBC news website is a good video about a school in Oldham that was lucky enough to have a company offer to install a green roof on their building. Now the roof is used for lessons about plants and wildlife and has become a magnet for birds. Many of the kids don’t [...]
A new roof garden was recently officially launched at Liverpool University in England. The roof was developed by the Liverpool Guild of Students “with the intent to provide students, staff and the community with the opportunity to participate in a sustainability initiative.” Components on the roof include garden planters, a bird box, wildflowers for wildlife [...]
In Cardiff Bay, Wales there is a new housing installation aimed at birds and bats. Gitta Gschwendtner, a German-born, London-based artist worked with ecologists to create the new housing in Century Warf containing 1,000 different boxes. The wall sits along a public river pathway, backed by a residential development. There are some good articles about [...]