Last week, Swindon Saplings met for a picnic at our wildlife pond, to celebrate Dr Jane’s upcoming 90th Birthday. We planted 4 trees on our plot in her honour – 1 crab apple tree, 1 plum tree, 1 cox’s orange pippin apple and 1 cherry tree. Already, the beautiful cherry tree is starting to blossom […]
Fruit trees provide so much to the community. They give food, protection and a home to a variety of wildlife from tiny insects to birds, they help the environment through carbon sequestration and provide food to humans. As a group, Swindon Saplings wanted to plant some mini community orchards within our local green areas for […]
In February, Swindon Saplings Home Ed Group, donated 4 brand new dormice boxes to the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust for one of their dormice monitoring sites. Loss of habitat has been a major factor in the decline of Hazel Dormice, leading to their “vulnerable” status and subsequent protection. Charities are working tirelessly to protect remaining habitats […]
Swindon Saplings is a Home Educators Group, run by parents and children, working together as a group to make the world a better place and inspire others to do the same. I felt it would be nice to take the time and look back on everything we have achieved in 2023, for the environment, animals […]
As a group, Swindon Saplings wanted to be able to do more with others in the community. We decided to organise some visits to care homes and to build relationships with the residents. Yesterday, we had our first visit to Orchid Care Home in Swindon, which was a hit! We arrived to meet the residents […]
Over 3 sessions, our Gardening Club worked towards achieving our Level 1 of the RHS Schools Gardening Awards as a Home Education Group. We had lots of fun, coming up with ideas, growing and planting things for this year and also ready for spring, and repurposing items to keep our allotment plot as environmentally friendly […]
Today we held a litter pick at one of our local parks, where we managed to pick up a LOT of rubbish from around the park and car park, helping to keep the local waterways cleaner, helps the local wildlife and makes the area much more enjoyable and safe for others. We started removing the […]
We just wanted to share our achievement following the success with our beautiful wildlife pond. We were nominated by the Tadpole Garden Village in Bloom group for our wildlife plot for the ‘It’s your community’ award at the Britain in Bloom (RHS) awards. Some of us went down to the awards ceremony which took place […]
We feel it is important to learn more about the world around us in order to learn how we can better protect and preserve it. We recently connected with The Mammal Society and were keen to get involved in their “Searching for Shrews” project. We were invited to be the “pilot study” of a new […]
Swindon Saplings Home Ed Group – Our Wildlife Pond! Back in October, talks began with the committee of Tadpole Garden Village (a local allotment) which unfortunately had an unusable plot due to winter flooding, left looking unsightly and overgrown. Finally, in April, we were ‘handed over’ the plot and given the green light to turn […]
