Welcome to our Firbank Rd and Hobart Walk Wilderhood Watch page!
Projects we are running:
- Pollinator Highway
- Glyphosate-free Streets (Firbank rd)
- Hedgehog Street (Firbank rd)
- Buzz Stops
We were so pleased that our October 2023 plant giveaway resulted in lots of pollinator-friendly plants finding new homes in nearby gardens. We also very much enjoyed meeting our neighbours and welcoming their involvement in growing our street Pollinator Highway. This was a collaboration with Beech rd and Sheppards Close Wilderhood Watch groups.
We had a fantastic time at our Beech rd/Firbank rd stall on Sunday October 8, 2022. Not only were our seed and plant giveaways, as well as our custom made cards, very popular, but we gained some lovely new recruits to help us with our street projects!
As Firbank Rd backs on to Beech Bottom Dyke, we are keen to make sure any hedgehogs that live there are able to access our gardens.
When we first joined WW in 2021, a lot of us on our street have noticed that we’re seeing fewer animals in our gardens, including hedgehogs. We banded together to do everything we could to encourage them to start visiting again, starting with making sure they could easily get in and out of our gardens. In 2024 we were rewarded with a sighting of the first hedgehog we had seen in the area for years.
Michaela, who was recently released in Jennings Rd (also a Wilderhood Watch street)
Hedgehogs need to travel over a mile a night in order to find food, mates and shelter, so it’s very important that they have access to our gardens, and that they are Hedgehog Friendly. That means, amongst other things, please don’t use slug pellets, or leave rat poison in your garden.
As Firbank Rd runs parallel to Beech Bottom Dyke, which hopefully does have a hedgehog population, please remember to give hedgehogs access to and from there as well as linking your garden to your neighbours’. You can do this by making sure you have a 13cm x 13cm hole in your garden fences, or even better, replacing old fences with native hedgerows. (The Woodland Trust has lots of sapling packs suitable for hedge planting to choose from.)
By registering your hole on the Big Hedgehog Map, along with any hedgehog sightings, it will help scientists monitor the hedgehog population in our area.
As well as creating safer gardens with better access, we are also determined to protect any hedgehogs who venture on to the road. We’ve put up six 20mph Hedgehog signs along our street, which hopefully will encourage motorists to slow down and drive more carefully.
Please have a look at the Lancaster and Gurney Court Rd project page for further information on keeping hedgehogs safe, along with information on how to create a dog-friendly hedgehog hole!
If you live on Firbank rd and would like to become involved in our Pollinator Highway and/or Hedgehog Street projects, or help weed our street as part of our Glyphosate-free streets project, please contact Lorraine Imber at laine@theimbers.co.uk or ph. 07579 033768. If you live on Hobart Walk and would like to take part in our Pollinator Highway project, please contact Alison at aliabodarham@gmail.com.
