St Denys Church Garden – Summer wildlife blog June 2025

For a number of years now we have let some of the grass in the church grounds grow longer during the summer to create a wildlife habitat. We have also encouraged native wildflowers ranging from meadow buttercups, knapweed and oxeye daisies. This meadow is home for butterflies including meadow brown and – for the first time this year – small skipper, together with buff-tailed and red-tailed bumblebees.

The lime trees are home to common nesting birds including woodpigeons and at least two of the nestboxes were used this year, both by great tits. We were delighted to find another first this year – a caterpillar of the lime hawkmoth. Earlier this year we had to lose a birch tree which was slowly rotting and in danger of falling, We have left these logs in shady corners because they provide a habitat for dozens of life forms including stag beetles which appear regularly each summer. They have also been used to make seats for the many human visitors who enjoy sitting under the trees.

We hope passers by will read the signs explaining why the grass has been left to grow longer and get a glimpse of a passing butterfly… come the autumn we’ll cut it back and remove the clippings to encourage wildflower seeds to germinate. Please let us know if you see any wildlife!