Loving Nature
Wildlife Conservation
We love conservation at Rustic Country Retreats
We are very proud to be doing our bit and making small steps for a better future...
What we do for our lovely bees
Encouraging Pollinators
We are creating flower-rich margins and other habitats to provide patches of wildflowers across the farm. These margins can act as a buffer alongside hedgerows, ditches and existing wildflower-rich grasslands and woodland, and provide a transition from farmed land to natural habitat. We plant pollen and nectar mixes to provide food during ‘hungry’ periods in early spring, and later summer and autumn.
Managing hedgerows on a two or three year rotation to ensure that there are always some hedgerows left uncut, and providing abundant hedgerow flowers every year.
We also use a hand wash in or cabins & huts called Bee Lovely made by Neals Yard. They also support Bee friendly charities www.nealsyardremedies.com
Barn owls
Maintaining a Balanced Ecosystem
Barn owls are traditionally associated with old barns and hollow trees but are known to take readily to nest boxes placed in modern farm buildings or trees. These magical birds are an essential part of the local ecosystem and play the part of one of our natural apex preditors.
If you look closely, you can see many owl boxes as you walk to your cabin or hut. And if you are lucky, you may even spot an owl at dusk.
The Woodland Trust
We worked with the Woodland Trust to create our first new woodland
The role of woods and trees in the fight against climate change is critical.
It's now very clear the crutial part that trees play in the fight to save our planet. Trees are natures way of locking up carbon, reducing pollution and flooding. Trees also support people, wildlife and farming in adapting to the climate crisis.
We are blessed to have many areas of beautiful natural woodland already established on our land. Our aim to to nourish and maintain what we have and grow even more.
So far we have planted over 5000 new trees and we will continue to plant more and more each year.
We are incredibly thankful to the Woodland Trust for their guidance and knowledge.
We plant nectar rich flower mixtures
Creating Natural Habitats
By planting a collection of native wild flowers, a continuous supply of pollen and nectar is made available. Once established, our cafefully managed mix of flowering plants can result in flowering from early spring through to late summer.
We are working to protect the natural sources of pollen and nectar on the farm, such as flowering plants in hedgerows and field margins.
Nectar flower mixtures made up of legumes generally need to be re-established after three or four years. An alternative is to establish perennial flower-rich margins made up of fine grasses and flowering plants such as knapweed, scabious, bird's-foot trefoil and yarrow.
Field Margins on Grasslands
Grass and broad-leaved plants which are allowed to go to seed and develop a structure can be particularly valuable as they can be used by nesting birds and large, long-lived insects. Leaving uncut margins around mown grass fields can provide this. Alternatively, fenced-off strips along the edge of grazed fields can offer similar benefits.
Leaving Grass Margins to Nature
Our grass margins are not grazed or cut, providing natural wild food for seed-eating birds.
Grass margins maintained through the winter harbour over-wintering insects. A grass strip which is only cut or grazed once every three years will harbour large, long-lived insects whose life cycle would be disrupted by the mowing or grazing which takes place on the rest of the field. These insects will be an important food source for birds, especially when collecting food for chicks.
Providing for Our Feathered Friends
Helping wildlife flourish
For birds, the availability of seed food is often the most limiting factor on modern livestock farms. The decline of arable fodder crops and the large-scale switch from hay to silage has reduced seed availability.
Around mown fields, uncut strips of at least two meters in width can provide a temporary seed source, although much of this will be lost during aftermath grazing. Wider fenced-off strips, which are cut or grazed once every three years, can, however, provide seed food for birds for longer periods.
Creating beetle banks to support natural pest control.
We're Bigging Up the Beetles!
'What are beetle banks?... I hear you ask'. Created by farmers, beetle banks are long raised tussocky grass strips that run through the middle of large arable fields. They provide essential, permanent habitats for many welcome insects and spiders and are a natural form of biological pest control.
Insects overwinter in the beetle banks, then move into the crop in the spring and feed on crop pests. These species can travel up to 250 metres from grass field margins during spring, but in large fields, they are unable to reach the centre. Beetle banks provide a habitat that enables predatory insects to cover a whole field and help protect crops from harmful insect infestation.
Beetle banks also provide habitat for some of our native wild birds. Species such as corn buntings, reed buntings and skylarks prefer to nest in open farmland away from field boundaries as do mammals like the harvest mouse. Grey partridges sometimes choose them in preference to hedge banks to avoid predators.