Wilder Gardens Resources

Elephant hawkmoth on flowers

WildNet - Tom Marshall

Be the voice for nature

Wilder Open Garden Resources

Your Wilder Open Garden Resources

Thanks for your interest in hosting a Wilder Open Garden! 

Whether you're planning a small get together with friends and family, or extending the invite to your neighbours and local community, you'll find some helpful tips, advice and ideas in our Wilder Open Gardens Fundraising Pack to make your day a big success. 

Download your Wilder Open Gardens Fundraising Pack

 

Resources

Spreading the word

Invite your friends, family and neighbours using our template invitations to get the date in their diaries, and use our poster templates to promote your event locally. If you’re organising a bigger event and want as many people to know about it as possible, see our Wilder Open Gardens pack for tips and resources, and, if you haven’t already, add your event to our map.  

Poster template >
Poster template (mini open garden) >

Invitation template >
Invitation template (mini open garden) >

Social media images

Image 1 >
Image 2 >

Image 1 (mini open garden) >
Image 2 (mini open garden) >

After your event

Use our template "Thank you poster" to let everyone know how much you raised afterwards.

Thank you poster template >
Thank you poster template (mini open garden) >

How to be the voice for nature

Think about how you’re going to spread the word to your guests about the ways you’ve improved your outdoor space for wildlife.  Our hosts commonly use chalkboards, posters or information sheets showing the current plants, features of interest and recent wildlife sightings; others have created trails around their garden with signs noting key wildlife friendly features, or you could print out our key information sheet > and some of our "how to guides" to help your guests welcome wildlife into their own spaces 

Print our QR codes to distribute around your garden, to point your guests directly to information on how to make changes for nature. 

QR codes > COMING SOON

Browse our wealth of tips, ideas and how to guides for improving your outdoor space for wildlife. 

Wildlife gardening 

How to raise funds for wildlife

You can’t beat tea and cake as a way to raise vital funds for wildlife.  

Ask friends, family, local groups and businesses if they could donate cakes for your fundraiser. Supermarkets often donate things like clotted cream and jam. Or, freeze some homemade cakes ahead of your event. Contact your local church or village hall who may lend you a hot water urn and crockery. 

We recommend the following minimum donations: 

  • Tea and biscuits £1.50 
  • Tea and cake £3 
  • Cream tea £3.50 

Top tip: Get some biodegradable takeaway containers ready so you can sell left over cake towards the end of the day. 

There are lots of other ways to raise even more - entry donations are common place for events like this, plant and produce stalls are always welcomed, and sweepstakes and tombolas are fun and guaranteed ways to boost the funds you raise. 

Guess the Weight of the Cake

Guess the number of sweets in the jar

Set up an online fundraising page  

For those that don’t carry cash, you can set up a fundraising page on JustGiving in just a couple of clicks! Go to www.justgiving.com/campaign/WilderOpenGardens  

and click “Start fundraising”. 

Building homes for wildlife

Do you know anyone handy with a hammer? Would they consider making a few bird boxes, bat boxes and insect hotels? Or how about a hedgehog home? 

Download your step-by-step instructions for making all sorts of homes for nature to sell at your Wilder Open Garden to raise even more funds. 

Build a home for wildlife  

Activities for children

If you're expecting children to be present at your Wilder Open Garden, you may wish to print out some of our wildlife masks for youngsters to cut out and colour in: 

Frog mask  

Butterfly mask  

Badger mask  

Owl mask   

Kingfisher mask   

Resources for churches

For template management plans for burial grounds, plus heaps of other resources, invite your local church to become part of the Wilder Churches community. 

Resources for churches  

Resources for schools

For tips and practical advice on transforming school grounds into a wildlife haven that supports curriculum learning, check out our Schools Pack:  

Schools resources 

Bees on flower

Honey bees (Apis mellifera) foraging on Pink aster (Aster novae-angliae) - Nick Upton/2020VISION

Great ideas

Our host Caroline Edwards came up with a fantastic idea – a Pollinator Hamper raffle!  

Caroline filled a hamper of donated goodies, all themed around things that we depend on pollinators for – local ciders, chutneys and jams, homemade hedgerow crumble cakes and speciality teas, coffees and chocolates.  

If you’re unable to draw a raffle on the day – an alternative could be a pollinator themed tombola… see our advice in your Wilder Open Gardens pack.

Better together

Connect with others who are making changes for nature in Somerset and share your event in our Team Wilder Facebook group