Every windowsill, yard, and small garden is a stepping stone in the patchwork of spaces that animals and plants live in and move through – for shelter, and for food. Tiny changes that we can make help to improve the connections between these patches, making a huge difference to our wild companions. If you’d like to find out more about the simple changes you can make to help wildlife this autumn, join (me / Katie Horgan – Rough Around the Edges Project Officer) for a walk through some wildlife gardening ideas.

Rough Around the Edges (RATE) is part of the Chalk, Cherries and Chairs Landscape Partnership Scheme led by Chilterns Conservation Board. The Scheme is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and has three key themes: Wildlife, History, and People and Communities. Rough Around the Edges is one of six Wildlife themed projects and is being delivered by BBOWT.

Small, wildlife-rich areas can be just as important as big ones – and by improving and connecting these little islands of nature we can help wildlife recover across the central Chilterns. Examples of sites we are working on include:

• community gardens
• woodlands
• churchyards
• allotments
• ponds and watercourses
• meadow areas

You can learn more about the Rough Around the Edges project here: https://www.bbowt.org.uk/rough-around-edges