You may already be friendly with your neighbours, but if not, this could be a great way to get to know the people in your street a bit better.
Invite your neighbours to join in
- Print these postcards, add your contact details and post them through your neighbours’ doors or place them on local notice boards or shops, so that people can find out a little bit about the project.
- Add your name and contact details to this poster and put them up in your local area. Please do this in a considerate way, avoid pinning posters to trees or sticking them under your neighbour’s windscreen.
- You may want to knock on your neighbours’ doors to introduce yourself and tell them about Nature Street and why you would like to start it in your street.
- Use existing groups and social media, such as Facebook, to float your ideas and see who’s interested.
Call a meeting
- Call a meeting of interested people in your local pub, café, church or home and agree a plan of things you might like to start doing. It can help to ask each person to take on a different task, so that all can play an active role if they wish.
- Be inclusive. Anyone in your street can be involved. Even if they don’t have a garden, people may have valuable skills that they can contribute.
- Please be respectful of residents who may not wish to be involved and don’t be disheartened if there are only a couple of households interested.
Make plans
- Consider drawing a basic map of your street's gardens, or look at your street via internet-based maps. Individuals may like to draw a birds eye view of their space and how they like to use it. For example entertaining, kids play, growing food, sitting and relaxing in the evening are all important uses.
- Discuss what you would like to add to your gardens/street for the benefit of wildlife. Use our principles of Nature Street and other gardening for wildlife information as a starting point.
- Look at how your gardens link together. Are they separated by fences, brick walls, hedges? Consider ways you can increase the connectivity of your gardens by making holes in fences and walls or linking habitats with overhanging vegetation for example.
Begin work on your Nature Street
- Begin working in your own space/garden or perhaps all work together on different gardens each time you meet.
- Ensure that you are confident and able to work with tools and materials that you might need to use when carrying out jobs in your own and/or neighbours' gardens. Please remember your safety and that of others is of paramount importance.
- You may find it helpful to set regular dates to meet to work on your gardens e.g. the second Sunday of the month.
Remember to keep a record of how your Nature Street develops, for example by making a Facebook page or a blog. This may also be a good method of communication, letting everyone know what is going on.