The Hackney Buzz - Hackney Buzzline News Dec 2024
Welcome to the The Hackney Buzz, and welcome if you’ve recently joined our mission to create a flower corridor in Hackney, buzzing with bees and butterflies.
With the help of many dozens of volunteers, we’ve set up an amazing four new pollinator havens on the Hackney Buzzline this autumn.
Millfields Park
Volunteers from Hackney Tree Musketeers and Millfields User Group created a native woodland biome next to the cycle superhighway on Millfields park last winter. They put in oak, hazel, hawthorn and other trees and shrubs, carefully planted to increase biodiversity and absorb more carbon dioxide in a small space.
In October, we invited children from Mandeville primary school and Forest Grove Nursery to help put 5000 English bluebell bulbs into the ground. Native bluebells are a protected part of natural woodland and provide nectar for early pollinators. In spring we hope to see the bluebells burst into a blanket of colour.
At the same time, young people from Hackney’s ELATT sixth form helped us to create a chain of loggeries along the cycle path. ELATT works with young people who have special educational needs, looked after children, and refugees and asylum seekers.
Log piles covered in fallen twigs and leaves provide habitat for the larvae of dozens of flower-visiting species. We used wood from different tree species and ageing logs hosting invertebrates from Hackney Marshes to increase biodiversity. Well-constructed log habitats also provide forage and shelter for small mammals, reptiles and amphibians, helping kick-start the recovery of the wider ecosystem.
We’re grateful to Hackney Council’s biodiversity officer Cassandra Li, local nature expert Ian Phillips, and the Hackney Parks team for supporting these projects.
Daubeney Fields
On nearby Daubeney Fields, we set about making a new butterfly meadow. Surveys carried out by Buzzline ecologist Gerry show that meadow and long grass patches are helping bring back grassland butterfly species to our parks. One is the Essex skipper - a London Biodiversity Action Plan species whose numbers are declining regionally. Essex skippers feed on a grass called Cock’s Foot so we added it to our seed mix.
Meadow plants thrive on nutrient-poor soil. So we carved out a crescent-shaped scrape in the turf with a mechanical digger, digging down to the underlying war rubble. Our postcode gardener Rachael then ran two seed sowing events for nursery and reception year children from Kingsmead primary school. The children loved running about scattering seeds.
Our meadow project was advised and supported by the Butterfly Conservation charity and agreed with Hackney Council as part of its local Nature Recovery Plan.
Kingsmead Estate
We’re now transforming a mundane mown area on the Kingsmead Estate into an exciting pollinator garden. The garden celebrates the lives of Carol, Wendy and June - three friends known as the ‘Golden Girls’ - who recently passed away at the estate. Our ‘Memory Garden’ will include a wildflower meadow, clover lawn, spring flowers, lavender gabion planters, ornamental beds and climbing roses. It will also contain nesting habitats for ground nesting and cavity nesting solitary bees, log habitats, and a pond. Relatives of the Golden Girls, estate residents and other volunteers come every week to help build the Kingsmead ‘Memory Garden’.
We built the bee nursery under instruction from Dr Konstantinos Tsiolis from Pollinating London Together. Dr Tsiolis is a bee expert who has studied the habitat preferences of ground-nesting bees for six years. All our habitat creation is informed by the best available science. We aim to complete the garden by spring.
Mosaic Trail
We’re thrilled to have formed an art partnership with the Hackney Mosaics Project to lay a pollinator mosaic trail along the Hackney Buzzline. We’re putting a pair of mosaics at each pollinator station along the Buzzline, showing the beautiful bees and butterflies that live in our neighbourhoods. In November, we installed the first pair at Kingsmead primary school next to Daubeney Fields above a pollinator-friendly flower bed we created there. The two mosaics show a Peacock butterfly and Wool carder bee which topped a children’s ‘favourite pollinator’ poll over summer.
You’ll see new mosaics appearing in other places on the Buzzline next year. We’d like to give a big thanks to all the volunteers at the Hackney Mosaics Project for putting the time and love into making them.
Get involved!
You are part of a growing community supporting the Hackney Buzzline. Over 100 people have now signed up to receive our updates. If you’d like to get involved in our projects or share ideas of what you’d like to see then please join our Hackney Buzzline volunteering group
As we move towards the second year of our project we’re launching the next stage: a collaborative Community Map. By sharing photos of your pollinator-friendly spaces, you’ll help us build an inspiring, interactive map showcasing Hackney’s green contributions. From balcony planters to garden makeovers, every effort makes a difference—and we can’t wait to see yours!
