As the thousand and more trees and thousands of plants of the Bealtaine Project grow taller and more dense, so it is the once barren land seems more and more as it is…an Ark for Earth, set into a monoculture landscape of Cash-Crop-Forestry and animal grazing fields.
This summer witnessed the most Bees, Butterflies, Pollinators and Birds ever!
The wildlife in search of home are migrating to the oasis of Bealtaine Cottage.
They know where the food, shelter and ultimate habitat is to be found!
So, I thought to myself, what if those with gardens, allotments, smallholdings etc., pledged to devote a percentage of what they tend or own to wildlife?
We are talking Arks, where wildlife can not only survive, but thrive!
This takes the presumption that one cannot make a difference and turns it on it’s ridiculous head! 
For one can make a difference!
Two can double that little Ark for Earth…hundreds can create a huge difference and thousands…well, thousands can begin to stack the odds in favour of Mother Earth!
Now don’t get me thinking of hundreds of thousands or even millions, for my head will almost explode with possibilities…but you see where this is going, don’t you?
And as for Guerrilla Gardening…oh joy!
What about seed bombs chucked out of the car window onto the motorway verges?
We are creative people who care…if you’ve landed here on this website you most certainly are!
So let’s get to it!
And, by the way, if I’d listened to all the experts on where one can and cannot successfully plant a garden, never mind three acres, the Bealtaine Project would still be on the back-burner with little hope of ever happening!
Oh, and the Lughnasadh Garden is being worked on little by little, with a grand opening and dedication ceremony next Bealtaine (May 1st)
…the Ark is being extended…
…One Garden At A Time
and…it’s going to be mighty!
I ove this post and all the positivity it has generated. I have a small garden and most of it is given over to growing vegetables. You have shown me the need to create an area to provide more food for insects. I already let some radish and broccoli flower as the bees love these flowers. I persuaded my other half to use broken planks from our old shed to make a trough. I managed to source some locally grown plants and the trough is now full of echinacea, sedan and beautiful daisies. We then used other bits of the old shed to create a bug house where the insects can shelter once they are fed.
We are also tree bombing 🙂
We live on an old distillery site surrounded by trees. Many of the trees are old and have been damaged or come down in recent storms. It may not be our land but we are about to plant some new trees on it. 🙂
Ha, ha. You are becoming guerilla gardeners. I love it. Happy seed bombing. 🌺🌿
I love it…and your food plants will be all the more healthier and productive for the Bee-Loved flowers…food for all and an abundance of seed! Bombs Away!
Love your Mighty Spirit and watching your garden grow. “Seed Bombs”, what a brilliant idea! XXOO
Thanks Christine! Bombs away!
Love the seed bomb idea! Thanks for sharing!
Easy to make…and fun to throw!
I have an interesting story to tell you regarding “magic” that happened in my garden this year! Since finding your website, I have been diligently trying to attract hummingbirds, bees, bluebirds and wild life to my garden. Well a couple of months ago, I noticed that some of my newly planted flowers and plants had been “mowed to the ground.” I was truly puzzled as to what it could be “pruning” my plants so diligently! I assumed it may have been a rabbit as I had seen them in the yard before. But then I noticed little pieces of my plants sticking out from underneath the bottom of my potting bench!!! One of the branches was a hydrangea stem with a huge flower that got stuck. My husband and I could not imagine what was going on. So he pulled my bench away from the wall and out hopped a huge toad!! No way, I told my husband, did that toad cut all those plants down–especially the hard stemmed plants! My husband then tilted the potting bench back and underneath was a beautifully formed round nest with beautiful colored flowers and greenery from my garden!!!!! It was beautifully made!! Inside the nest were teeny, tiny baby frogs!! If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would not have believed it!! I did some research and did find out that some frogs do build nest! It was one of the most incredible things I have ever seen or experienced!
A magical experience…and so many are happening, everywhere…She is bringing us all together! Blessings to you all XXX
Bill Mollison has died.
I know…a sad loss to us all, bless his legacy XXX
Hello Colette, I am so glad that I can comment again . I have had terrible trouble trying to log in, but all is ok now. My Hawthorn hedge I planted out the front last year is really comming on now.i have also scattered wild flower seeds down the lane, so fingers crossed for next year. Thank you for giving me so much inspiration this past year. Blessings to you, Jack and Sammy.xxx
Hi Melanie, I adjusted the settings so as all can comment even if they’re no logged onto wordpress. I had to tighten the settings before as there was simply tons of spam coming through. Glad all is fine for you!
Ms. Luna Crone brought me here… I’m so glad! Love your gardens and I shall be come back soon.
Cielo
Welcome!
And I love that metal dragon, in a tree!!!!!! Oh, oh, oh, I love him!!!!! :-))))))
Luna Crone
The photo, with the fragile mushrooms (I think they are mushrooms), is so lovely.
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Almost painfully fragile, they are. One wants to take gentle care of them.
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And so, doesn’t this photo, almost encompass your work?
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Care and nurturing of your plot of Earth… And the desire to instill in others, the same view/wish… -smile-
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Gentle hugs,
Luna Crone
It encapsulates all I believe in, yes! The tiny plant is actually a Cotoneaster…and all growing on top of an old tree stump I stood upright near the shed.
We live on 109 acres here in the Land of Oz and we have fenced off approximately 2 to 3 acres to plant trees and gardens etc. But down the back of our property it is wild and we will be leaving it that way.
Where there were no trees near a small dam at the front of our property we dug out the dam to make it deeper and then planted all around it, trees and shrubs and crocosmia, which has gone wild. But I have just got back inside (forced into it as the light had gone!!) from planting purple bearded Irises and two types of lilies that all love having their feet wet and so they went into the run off area from the dam and whilst there I had the privilege of espying a Buff Banded Rail bird running in and out of the undergrowth. We only saw this bird for the first time 12 months ago and now it seems it is nesting on our property. I’m stoked. Our property was just a cattle grazing farm prior to us buying it 25 years ago. There are many birds now and just weeks ago we spotted two Wonga pigeons in our front yard. That makes me very happy. I think I have a small Ark. Thanks Colette, once again. xxx
How wonderful and much needed! This is turning out to be a bigger Ark than previously imagined!
Of course I would love to grow an English meadow, but that doesn’t work out here in the Land of Oz. I loved it when our parents took myself and three sisters out for the day from our flat in London to the English countryside where meadows abounded when I was a child.
This crazy way of killing Mother Earth through modern farming methods will be looked back upon in shock and disbelief that such callousness and stupidity abounded!
I think the tide is starting to turn, we just need it to be a swift turn.
I couldn’t believe that they started ripping out the hedges after I emigrated to Australia, but they found out what an error that was.
Wonderful to read this post and all the comments! My garden is flourishing here in Essex too and doing its best to increase the local wildlife. There are plenty of insects, including lots of bees and some butterflies, also lots of frogs and newts. We see very few moths though, nothing like as many as a few years ago. This area is mainly arable farming, none of it organic. The farmers like to keep everything ‘tidy’, and there are not nearly enough wild flowers around. We need more meadows!
If not meadows, then mini-meadows…garden lawns are easy to re-sow with a wild flower and seed mix, even tiny patches are very beneficial!
I’ve let sections of my property go wild as well and I’m so excited by all the life I see here!
I’m standing with you here in Dahlonega,Georgia, USA.
Wonderful! Blessings to you Barbara XXX
There are lots of good things happening, there is a movement here in Ireland called Don’t mow let it grow this is related to road side verges, lots of councils are copping on. We also have the Pollinator Plan 2015/20 from Biodiversity Ireland this encourages best practice in looking after all pollinators, it’s a good read can be found on line. Lawns will eventually become beds of clover as people become more aware. Nearly all councils in Ireland have signed up to the Pollinator Plan if they don’t adhere to it, nothing like putting a bit of pressure on them , in the nicest possible way, of course, works wonders.
That’s great news!
Count me in!
Yeah!
Love your words and pics and meditation garden.
Blessings X
Yes! Some very fertile ideas. The fall equinox is Nature’s New Year, a time for sowing seeds for the new in the northern hemisphere.
Blessings X
I so agree with what you say do. Presently, we are living on 13 acres in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, USA. The back 10 acres are completely forested with mostly White Pine, and Balsam Fir. One thing we learned was, That when ever we did a little trimming or thinning it brought out so wildlife We have Wild Turkey, Deer, and Moose There are also bunnies, and so many song birds.! We enjoy are little bit of paradise, and share it with our Wild friends. The Bear however are a bit of a pain, as they cause a lot of damage, including tearing the metal roof right off the chicken coop and killing all the chickens!
It sounds heavenly…and as my grandsons said when the fox got my hens…”he has to eat too!”