As soon as I set foot into Chris and Sheila’s garden, I was blown away by the colours, textures and many different features in their garden. I immediately felt a sense of ‘wild’ as I walked beside the long grasses and colourful blooms surrounded by bumblebees, it didn’t feel like I was just in someone’s garden, it felt like I was truly out in nature.

I sat down with Chris and Sheila to have a chat about their fantastic project to attract a number of butterfly species to their garden and their hope to share their success and learnings and connect other pieces of nearby land to create wildlife corridors.

How did it all begin and what inspired you to start your project?

Chris: We’ve always loved butterflies. I then got into butterfly transects and that’s where it started, which then moved onto looking at how we can make a difference. What we've done here is fantastic as a as a focal point, but you need the corridors and a community involved so it’ll become feasible. So our vision and plan is to always to have corridors and get the community involved. The big step is what we do with Northwood Park. We’ve had a consultation with them and that’s the next step to create that corridor with them.

How have the community reacted to your project?

Chris: We had two open days for butterfly conservation and an open day for the community and everybody who came was enthusiastic. People are taking on board growing elm trees; which are important for the white letter hairstreak colony; which we need to protect.

Sheila: There are people around here who have got wildlife friendly gardens, particularly with ponds.

Chris: If we can touch base with people who have got ponds and then take them to the next level and hopefully they will broaden their horizon to see how important it is for insects.

What tools and resources have you used to get you started? 

Chris: Hands, feet and a big shovel! Derbyshire Wildlife Trust have given us that support and got us involved. Jim Steele who was from Butterfly Conservation East Midlands, has also been excellent. Giving us the thought of what we can do and how practically we can do it. There was a lot of trial and error. For example you’re not supposed to grow kidney vetch here, as it’s supposed to be on limestone or chalk, but it does grow here now. These are all experiments and we are carrying on experimenting.  

How did you know what type of plants you needed to attract certain species? 

Chris: Research through reading books and speaking to people. On our travels we looked at certain environments and how that fits in and how we might be able to change that. Each year our butterfly count has increased, when it first started it was 18 and now it’s 24 and we are hoping to get the green hairstreak, marbled white and brown argus, which are the next three we would try to attract.   

What would you say are your top features in your garden? 

Chris: I suppose the features are the butterflies we really like. We spent a lot of time creating an environment for the wall brown and then for the dingy skipper, because we know if you get the dingy skipper you get the common blue. We’ve created concentrated patches of flowers, so you’ve got a patch of birds-foot-trefoil and the same with the kidney vetch and dog violet.

Sheila: Don't forget the white letter hairstreak, we've adapted it (the garden) as we've focused on different butterflies.

Chris: We’ve planted oaks and elms and other bushes as there’s quite a lot of male butterflies that use bushes as a center point.

Sheila: And the alder buckthorn which we’ve had brimstones laying this year for the first time. I don't think we had ever seen a brimstone before putting in the alder buckthorn.

What can people do to encourage butterflies in their garden? 

Chris: I would advise people to just think about what they want and what they want to achieve. Look at what plants give them that opportunity to attract butterflies and other wildlife. Even if it’s just a pot, you can start small and simple. We’d also like to encourage people to use wildflowers rather than commercial which offer more benefit to insects.

Jim told us about the dingy skipper, which uses birds-foot-trefoil. But what you have to have is a rock and so the birds-foot-trefoil can grow over it and then the dingy skipper then lays its eggs in between the plant and the rock. So that's what we did and we've had dingy skippers. So it's doable, with trial and error and seeking advice from other people.

Have you faced any challenges during your project?  

Chris: We’ve had some health issues doing it, especially in my back and things like that doing it.

Sheila: The weather is always the issue too, when we sowed the grass and then has the drought. Then the next year we sowed it at a different time and then we had a flood and had to do it all over again.

What is your end goal and ultimate dream?

Chris: We had a vision on how long it would take and I think we’re on track. Then it was increasing the number of butterflies using the haven. But then the important thing was to have them breeding here. So now I’ve got 16 species that breed here. We would like to ensure the community is involved and committed to working together and sharing ideas that ultimately lead to creation of sustainable wildlife corridors. More butterflies are going on the red list and so it is crucial we start looking at building these corridors. We would also like to develop a 3/5 year plan to assess the feasibility of introducing suitable species to our butterfly corridors.

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