Show your ‘blue heart’ and go wild for insects!

MELKSHAM Goes Wild is encouraging the community to sign up to the Blue Campaign to help boost the UK’s declining insect population. 

The group – who have recently been promoting the campaign at weekends in the Avon Place precinct – are asking people to ‘be less tidy’ in their gardens and give over an area of the garden to ‘wildness’. People without gardens are also encouraged to take part by using window boxes or any other outdoor space available to them. 

They are also encouraging people to develop more ‘nature friendly habits’, such as avoiding the use of pesticides and herbicides; leaving an area of lawn uncut; creating a water source in their garden; putting up an insect hotel, bug house or bird box; choosing insect friendly plants; and planting native trees and hedges. 

Anyone who takes part in the Blue Campaign can promote their participation by displaying a handmade blue wooden heart in their garden, or by putting a poster in their window. 

Melksham Goes Wild says, “There are 30 million gardens in the UK, which cover 10 million acres, so with a little change in our gardening habits we can make a huge difference to our ailing insect populations. Everyone can do something, even if you don’t have a garden – a pot, a window box, an old sink will suffice. And nature will reward you very quickly with the sound of buzzing insects and butterflies.” 

About the plight of the UK’s insect population, the group says, “Have you noticed there were fewer bees, butterflies and other insects in your garden last year? When you’re driving at night the windscreen and headlights no longer get plastered in dead insects? Why is that? Because our insect populations have suffered a catastrophic decline over the last few years and we are now almost at crisis point in terms of their loss. 

“Why are insects important? They pollinate our flowers and food crops – 75% of our crops require pollinators; they ‘tidy up’ dead vegetation and dead animals, helping to keep the natural world in a healthy balance; they are a source of food for birds, frogs, hedgehogs, slow worms etc; some insects eat others and assist us humans, for example, ladybirds eat aphids; and we like to see the pretty ones, like butterflies and bees, in our gardens.” 

To find out more about Melksham Goes Wild, visit their Facebook page, or find them on Instagram and Twitter.