Helping Hands for Wild Flowers at the Butterfly Park

If you have been to New Ferry Butterfly Park, you may remember the bramble-dominated patch opposite to Mel’s Garden. Like the picture shown below, two suffocating species, ivy and brambles, operate like ground and air forces driving all other species to the edge. However, can you imagine that the exact area was once grassland some 20 years ago? While brambles are important to wildlife and there are plenty of them in the Park, flower-rich grassland provides an equally important but different wildlife habitat.

Ivy and brambles opposite Mel's Garden at the Butterfly Park

The work was started by Brian Burden from Wirral Countryside Volunteers and his helpers last autumn. We seized the opportunity and were carried away to transform this patch of ground back to its original shape. The tasks involve removing the prickly and scrambling brambles together with their roots and (as much as possible) the ivy crawling on the ground surface. While doing these tasks, some redcurrant bushes were revealed, the remnant of an allotment site many years ago!

Now the area looks so different, more open and fresher. Some dormant wildflower seeds in the soil will germinate soon. More wildflower seeds were added to the soil and more seeds to follow! Wildflower plug plants gifted by Cheshire Wildlife Trust were already in the ground last autumn, thanks to the helping hands of students from Liverpool John Moores University and refugees residing in Hoylake. 

A dead hedge at the edge of the garden area

In the picture above you may just make out a dry / dead hedge on the left, adding some style and decoration, as well as a demarcation “advising” the brambles and ivy where to stop!

Like managing any other wildlife habitats, there will be plenty of maintenance work to do in the years to come. However, the efforts will be hugely rewarded by watching the butterflies and other animals attracted to and making good use of the area! 

Yan and Charles, Butterfly Park volunteers