Bees are the batteries of orchards, gardens, guard them.

Carol Ann Duffy

Biodiversity and Wildlife

We share our garden with so many little creatures and critters, and we always try to encourage biodiversity and wildlife in the garden. In 2025, we made a significant investment in pollinator plants. Increasing biodiversity and supporting as much wildlife as possible in the garden is very important to us, and we are very fond of the wildlife we have!

If you sit for a cup of tea, a robin will perch himself on the table beside you and expect a few biscuit crumbs! We have a graceful heron who has a particular fondness for our pond. A fox that skips along the top of the wall from time to time. And, depending on how the season turns out, we could have up to twenty frogs in our wildlife area. We have accidentally come across families of hedgehogs when we've commenced various works, and have had to stop the work to prevent further disruption. See below a very short video of a family of four baby hedgehogs that we came across when doing some spring cleaning in the leaf mulch bays. We have any amount of birds - blackbirds, thrush, blue tits, and so many more. We've spotted some finches too. Our soil is alive and well. Our earthworms are impressive! And we have any amount of bees, butterflies, and lots of other insects - see the slideshow below for a sample selection of the creatures we share the garden with.

Check out these four baby hedgehogs in the video below! 

Click on the slides below to see a sample selection of some of our insects, bees, and wildlife. 

Sustainability

Sustainability is one of our core values at Santry Community Garden. We try to garden as sustainably as we can, as often as we can.

While we do not have an official 'organic' status, we adhere to organic gardening principles as much as possible. We obey a strict 'No Chemicals/Herbicides/Pesticides' policy.  We do not use peat in our garden. We made a significant investment in pollinator plants in 2025, to encourage and support biodiversity. 

In summer 2020, we installed solar panels on the wall between the Kitchen Garden and Orchard and these generate the electricity we need. Once again, our terrific members went to work! See below their work on this project. 

Composting is important to us, and we use this rich resource to replenish the soil and feed our plants. In 2025, we re-built our compost bays. Some of the organic matter that we generate as 'waste', such as a fallen tree, cannot be composted. We would always try to reuse this type of material whether it was to make a fence in the wildlife area, or something else. We have very creative members in our garden, a piece of wood might be carved into a table centerpiece! To assist with the sustainable management of this type of waste material, we acquired a small shredder. This is an excellent addition to our equipment inventory, because now we can shred wood/tree branches and use this mulch to spread around flower beds and tree bases. 

See below other works that we embarked upon that are guided by our committment to sustainability.