Create an explosion of wildflowers by making your very own seed bombs! You’ll need:

• Native meadow flower seeds (which you can get from our own Grow Wilder site!) or seeds collected from your garden
• Some peat-free compost
• Water
• Powdered clay (which you can find in craft shops, or use clay soil if you can’t find any)
• A mixing bowl

First, in your mixing bowl, mix together 1 cup of seeds with 5 cups of compost and 2-3 cups of clay powder.

Next, slowly mix in water with your hands until everything sticks together, then roll the mixture into firm balls.

Now for the fun bit – throw your seed bombs at bare part of the garden! In time you’ll have your own mini-meadow for local bugs to enjoy.

We’ve created a mini-meadow with our seed bomb, so now we want to make a welcoming home for the critters who’ve come to explore it! To make your own bug hotel, you’ll need:

• Four wooden pallets
• Bricks
• Old plastic bottles
• Bamboo canes
• Straw
• Leaves
• Tiles
• Carboard
• Stones/pebbles
• Twigs/loose bark

To start, place a wooden pallet in spot you’ve chosen to build your hotel. On top of the pallet, line bricks around the corners and across the middle. Place your next pallet on top of this and repeat that first step for all four of your pallets!

Once your structure is built, cut off the top two-thirds of your old plastic bottles. Fill half of them up with bamboo canes or plastic straws, and the other half with rolled up cardboard, and place these inside your hotel – this creates a shelter for our insect friends!

Fill in any remaining spaces with bricks, leaves, pebbles, stones, tiles, loose bark and straw, and add any extra materials that you may want to recycle! These could be old pipes, carpeting, toilet roll tubes, old plant pots. Get creative, and don’t forget to add a little welcome sign and give your hotel a name!

An apple a day may keep the doctor away, but they can also help to feed your local birds, who’ll likely be visiting more now that you’ve set your own bug hotel. For this craft, you’ll need:

• An apple
• An apple corer or a skewer
• Sunflower seeds
• String
• A think stick

You’ll need an adult to make a hole through the middle of the apple, from the top down, either using your apple corer or a skewer.

Next, thread some string through the hole in the apple and tie the bottom end to your thin stick. This is to give birds somewhere to perch!

Push the sunflower seeds into the apple until it’s covered and looking a little like a hedgehog.

Finally, tie the string to a tree branch and wait for the birds to take notice of this new tasty treat.

Now that you’ve made your outside space inviting for local wildlife, what better way to catch a glimpse of the nature in your neighbourhood than by making your own binoculars. You’ll need:

• Two cardboard tubes (you can use toilet roll tubes)
• String
• Paper
• Scissors
• Glue
• A rubber band
• A hole puncher or a pen
• Some felt tip pens to colour them in!

You’ll need to cut your paper down to size so that they are the same length as the cardboard tubes you’re using. Next, cover your tubes in glue and wrap the paper around them.

Using a pen or a hole puncher, insert a hole at the side of each tube, about a third of the way down.

Glue the two tubes together so that the holes you’ve made are facing the outside.

Insert string into one of the holes from the outside of the tube, then bring it through the tube and tie a chunky knot. Gently pull the string back from the outside, and repeat that on the other side.

Place a rubber band around the tubes to help the glue set overnight, then in the morning you can remove the rubber band and decorate your binoculars with the felt tip pens!

By getting creative with nature, we can create more places for wildlife to live and thrive. For more inspiration and to enter your green space into our wildlife gardening competition, click on the button below.

I want to welcome in wildlife