Alyson will be easily recognisable in her outdoor gear so if you see her up to her elbows in compost please do say hello.

Each week they come to the garden and diligently attend to the raised beds, turning over the coffee grinds that are put in from the café to enrich the soil. They have also been very hard at work preparing an area of the garden for a wildflower meadow!

We have received a small grant from Volunteering Matters which has allowed us to purchase some wonderful meadow, bee and butterfly seeds from Scotia Seeds. We received some great advice from them on what would be the best type to buy to fit in with our garden. We were also able to buy some new junior tools so that our younger members can participate in the digging!

The ground is now all ready and just awaiting planting in March.

The children have also been very busy making natural bird feeders to place around the garden so hopefully that will attract more wildlife.

Of course, it is not all just hard work. There is always time for play and the children have had great fun with loose parts play, making up nature potions in the mud kitchen and den building.
Every session we finish with a snack of treats provided by the Gorebridge Community Fridge which is something the children greatly enjoy and look forward to.

Looking ahead we will be planting some bulbs and developing our nature play area as well as planning what to plant in our raised beds.

We are still looking for resources for den building so if you happen to have any tarps or ropes or bungee cords please do let us know.
contact me at lorna.lagerman@gorebridge.org.uk

Our craft activity was inspired by the lovely Jaimie MacDonald from Greening Gorebridge who donated some prepared boxes for making automata . We had a very creative afternoon using up old flower and nature magazines, wooden skewers and paper straws to create some great moving scenes including owls swooping over landscapes, butterflies fluttering around gardens and even a teddy bear enjoying a picnic. Hop over to our Facebook page ‘Woodland Wildlings’ to see some of the finished results.

Our next session will be on Sunday the 29th September where we hope to go for a nature ramble. For more information you can follow our Facebook page or contact lorna.lagerman@gorebridge.org.uk

In spring and summer of 2018 GCDT were busy working with the wider community of Gorebridge to create a wildflower meadow area adjacent to the ruins of Newbyres Castle.

This often overlooked green space, nestled behind the historic Main Street is a treasured haven for plants, birds and insects. With the support of funding from the Grow Wild project and the helping hands of children from the nurseries, schools, community groups and volunteers work took place to enhance the biodiversity of the area by sowing and growing native wildflowers to be planted in the area.

Midlothian Artist Fiona Maher delivered a number of community-based workshops inspiring community plant conservation through art by designing a wildflower graffiti design for the meadow space. Midlothian Council Landscape department are helping in preparing the ground, spreading the subsoil and putting in a protective fence to allow the seedlings time to safely establish. This is a long-term community project with nature doing most of the work!

Why improve this area which many will say is already wild?

The UK has lost over 95% of its wildflower meadows since World War II and with this its pollinators that are vital to humans.

There is pressure on nature from building for accommodation and business, to people paving over their green spaces and cutting down trees. Urban areas are one of the most biologically diverse habitats in the country.

Newbyres has indicator species that show it was at one time a site of ancient woodland, long before the village was built. This information tells us a story about the history of our environment and signals the actions we need to take to stop the “ecological apocalypse we are presiding over” as Chris Peckham describes in his July 2018 Bio Blitz campaign across the UK. He is not alone in this vocal campaign to take action to protect the wildness of nature with many key Conservationists and Organisations promoting action to protect species especially with changing climate across the world and pressure on natural resources.

With this project, we aimed to support the ethos of Grow Wild and Kew Gardens by promoting and supporting action on a local level. We hoped to change the mindset and attitude that everything has to be neat, tidy and highly managed. Nature isn’t about everything being in rows with bedding flowers which are ecologically sterile and offer nothing to pollinators.

The UK is home to remarkable and beautiful wildlife but is also in big trouble.

In the case of some species, this means we are fast approaching the last chance to make a difference.

The Gorebridge Rewilding Grow Wild project supported the creation of a valuable wildflower-rich habitat that will help both pollinators and people. Inspired by the project Nature Artist Paul Hodges has created a beautiful series of boxes to highlight the biodiversity treasures of the UK (an exhibition to follow later in 2018) with species that are under threat from our countryside. They are truly amazing.

It is not just the loss of species that is of concern. Many Conservation organisations, including Kew Gardens are working with communities across the UK to bring people back into harmony with nature. Areas such as Newbyres Castle matter. The loss of connection to nature across the UK has been having a recognised and measurable negative impact on our health.

Who doesn’t get a good feeling from hearing a bird sing, spotting wildflowers on the verges or breathing in the beauty of the trees? Being in natural spaces improves our own wellbeing over time in nature being prescribed by many medical practitioners to improve physical and mental health.

We hope to shine the light on taking action to protect our green spaces. Nature Reserves are not enough and all green spaces play a vital part.

Help us make that difference by continuing the work of Rewilding Gorebridge. To find out more about the project, volunteer training available in conservation and horticultural skills along with upcoming events go to www.growwilduk.com/community-projects

Rewilding Gorebridge was funded by:

This year their campaign focus was an Musical Instrument Amnesty

By the end of the week 4 instruments had been donated to the office.
There were heartfelt and fond farewells as they went off to their new but yet unknown homes.
A bright pink guitar was rehomed with Mary, who told us all about her love of music and how she is in a band with her friends,  who now all have pink guitars! We’re very excited that one day perhaps they might do a wee performance for us at a Greening Gorebridge event!

We had another guitar, guitar stand and music stand donated which was a beloved possession of the daughter of one of our own Trust staff, Jane Burridge. 

And 2 fabulous wind instruments were donated by a local lady.

An oboe and a flute!

We are currently looking for home for these instruments and we pla t get in touch with one of the local schools to see if they could make use of them.

Thanks to everyone who donated these lovely instruments,  we will post an update when we have one about where they have found a loving new home.

Tuesday 13th March – Uniform Exchange

We took our second-hand uniforms along to the re-cycle sale at Gorebridge Parish church on Tuesday. It was wonderful to find homes for two boxes worth of uniforms and it was also a great opportunity to engage with members of the community and promote our project and upcoming events. We also collected a box of uniforms that had been donated over the last few months. We have now agreed to attend the re-cycle sale on the first Tuesday of every month!

Wednesday 14th March – Biodiversity Day

Biodiversity Day was a very successful collaboration between Gorebridge Wildlife Watch, The Scottish Wildlife Trust, RSPB and Greening Gorebridge. Lots of fun was had by the children (and adults) making seed bombs, bat boxes, bird nesting boxes, orange bird feeders, bird of prey gliders, interactive activities with the RSPB and a fantastic puppet show, which Dr Bunhead and his team created especially for Biodiversity Day. Not only did the story illustrate the importance of recycling but all the puppets were made from recycled materials. The little sponge people were particularly effective. It was a very busy day with 70 children from local schools and nurseries attending as well as 40 community and volunteer participants. After the success of Biodiversity Day, we are very much looking forward to being involved in many more similar collaborative community events in the future.

Thursday 15th March – Veg/ Produce bag making workshop

On the evening of Thursday 15th March we had the pleasure of the expertise of Kiki from Newtongrange who delivered a fab workshop on how to make a reusable drawstring vegetable/produce bags.

She cleverly and creatively used upcycled fabric from old shirts and duvet covers to make them.

5 folk came along on the night and had a great time making these stunning and very useful bags ready to go shopping with.

Folk who had been sewers in the past were suitably impressed with our lovely new sewing machines and sewing equipment!

Saturday 17th March

Afternoon tea
In preparation for our eagerly awaited afternoon tea we went shopping to Penicuik Storehouse, keen to source locally made and Scottish food and drinks. 
A lovely spread was laid out on the table, so much so we knew the afternoon tea would last all evening as various members of the community storlled along to see what we were up to.

Beeswax food wrap making workshop
Between 4-6pm on the same afternoon we had 15 folks along to make the beeswax food wraps throughout the evening, we had some children joining in too, making them as gifts for their mums.
Suzie from Healthy hampers came along too with some friends, and everyone was really excited about the postive impact of these reusable wraps instead of using wasteful cling film or aluminium foil.

Here’s a quick recap on the advantages and disadvantages of using Beeswax wraps

3 Advantages of Beeswax Wrap

1. It’s made from ingredients you can feel good about- simply beeswax and 100% cotton
2. It’s reusable- you can use them over and over again. They are simple to maintain- wash with cool water and a little mild dish soap. (don’t you hot water or the wax will melt) If the wax starts to wear out then they can be re-waxed.
3. It’s compostable- because the wraps are 100% natural once they truly have come to the end of their lives then they can be composted. How fab is that!

3 Disadvantages of Bee’s Wrap

• It’s not as pliable as plastic wrap- it doesn’t give a fully tight seal as cling film might.
• Not ideal for some food items- you shouldn’t use it to wrap meat or very wet substances for example
• It requires maintenance- you do have to put in a little more effort, but not really any more effort than washing a  tupperware lid.

I know I love my beeswax wraps, and we’ve already heard from a couple of the folk that made some on the night telling us how much they LOVE them!

Watch this space, we’ll have more creative upcycling and practical workshops coming up in the next few months and years!

How does cling film use impact on the environment?

Like other non-recyclables, plastic food wrap ends up on landfill at best, and as litter on land and in the sea at worst. On landfill it will sit and possibly leach its chemicals for years, not degrading, and elsewhere it will do the same, whilst also being a risk to wildlife or fish who may get caught up in it or eat it.

Clothes swap

After everyone was all beeswax wrapped out we welcomed a few extra folk in for our second Clothes Swap.

There were many bags of clothes donated by 8 people who attended, and lots of fun was had in searching for lovely items that were to make a perfect outfit with other items that people already owned. We swapped 15 lbs of clothes during the evening and many more faces were smiling as they went off with their new finds, eager for the next swap.

We will be going through out remaining clothes on the rails, keeping some of it that can potentially reused and upcycled in our 2018-20 Greening Gorebridge project and the rest will be donated to a local charity shop.

Want to know more about the Greening Gorebridge Project and be kept up to date with our events and workshops?