HC-One’s Berry Hill Park care home in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, is celebrating World Conservation Day on July 28, 2024, by highlighting its eco-friendly initiatives.
World Conservation Day acknowledges that the foundation for a healthy society is a healthy environment. It is a day to increase awareness about the importance of protecting our natural resources by encouraging worldwide awareness and action to protect the environment.
This year’s theme focuses on connecting people to be united, with activity termed ‘Exploring Digital Innovation in Wildlife Conservation’. Berry Hill Park care home has been conserving its environment by utilising its garden area to roll-out several environmentally friendly plans.
Berry Hill Park has its very own gardening club, who have been adopting several green initiatives in their garden area. There are ongoing projects taking place at the home, including several quirky ‘bug houses’ to help foster biodiversity.
Berry Hill Park’s gardening club recently carried out several tasks, including cleaning out the pots for more planting, digging out the weeds and raking in new compost for the raised garden beds, and watering new plants to stop them drying out.
This comes after Berry Hill Park residents took a trip out to their local garden centre. This helped them to pot colourful plants for the garden area, which will enable residents to watch them grow and benefit from their relaxing presence outside.
Further eco-friendly measures include planters that have been added to the garden to help grow a range of colourful plants and wildflowers. The planters will also help attract wildlife to the garden area of Berry Hill Park.
A bug house being painted by a resident at Berry Hill Park
The six bug houses in Berry Hill Park’s garden area were hand-painted by residents, which have been tied onto tree branches. The aim is for the bug houses to entice a plenty of bugs and insects into the garden.
The bug houses project is the handiwork of Berry Hill Park’s Wellbeing Coordinator, Claire Brown. The idea was discovered after they spoke to residents about refreshing the garden.
Claire revealed that a variety of insects have called the bug houses their home, including ladybirds and woodlouse. Berry Hill Park residents also wanted to help launch a wildflower garden at the home.
Work has recently started on the wildflower garden project, which will bring several positive impacts including enhancing resident wellbeing. This comes after Berry Hill Park resident Yvonne Challoner spotted a beautiful wildflower in the garden area.
Yvonne tying a bug house to plants in the garden area of Berry Hill Park
Subsequently, Claire discussed with residents how to further their garden area work to make the garden area more eye-catching. The home purchased more compostable pots, which will be used to sow seeds to grow a variety of wildflowers.
Claire stated that Berry Hill Park has also welcomed hedgehogs into the garden from a nearby woods. The care home is currently working with a frequent visitor on how they can continue to attract more of the spikey mammals into their garden area.
Berry Hill Park is planning on setting up a ‘hedgehog hive’, which will lure more hedgehogs. Berry Hill Park’s maintenance team are planning to gather some wood to build the hive, and they will draw up designs for the project as well as invite a wildlife expert at Mansfield Woodhouse to bring some hedgehogs to the home.
Claire Brown, Wellbeing Coordinator at Berry Hill Park care home, stated:
“At Berry Hill Park, we are fortunate to have such a large garden surrounded by trees. A few weeks ago, I was taking Yvonne into the garden where she saw a lovely wildflower growing on a mole hill as moles keep coming into the garden.
“After hearing Yvonne’s enthusiasm for wildflowers, we thought that we could make a wildflower garden, which we’re trying to do now. We want to do as much as possible in the summertime to get things ready for the winter.
“The wildlife enjoy our garden and we like to watch them, and some residents have bird feeders so they can see the birds and squirrels from their bedroom windows. We’ve always had some amazing birds – lots of magpies, wrens and robins, so we’ve always been interested in wildlife at Berry Hill Park.
“We try to incorporate the garden into our activity planner, such as potting plants, deadheading flowers, watering plants and painting bug houses. We’re now looking at biodiversity, and we’re currently listing the many wildflowers, bird, insects and wild animals that live in our garden.”
Yvonne Challoner, resident at Berry Hill Park care home, said:
“The wildflowers look so pretty in the garden they make me feel so much better when I am feeling down. I like to see the wildlife. They are very self-sufficient and look after their young and themselves.”
In March 2024, HC-One homes (including Snapethorpe Hall in Yorkshire) supported the 2024 Food Waste Action Week. There are also ongoing commitments by the care provider to reduce the levels of food waste across all its care homes.
HC-One also provides residents (with dietary preferences) a choice of nutritious vegetarian and vegan meals to further reduce the organisation’s environmental impact. Food waste is a major global issue, with approximately one billion tonnes of food being wasted each year, equating to one-fifth of all food available to consumers.
Wider eco-friendly initiatives are also being rolled-out across more of HC-One’s homes in 2024. These will include adding solar panels; installing electric vehicle (EV) charging points; decarbonising homes by removing gas appliances from the kitchen; and replacing gas tumble dryers with innovative air source heat pump dryers.
Mansfield 103.2 Morning News - 211124
