Warwickshire Wildlife Trust Press Release




PRESS RELEASE……………..PRESS RELEASE 11 March 2008 …………...For Immediate Release WATER VOLES AT CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW Inspiring gardeners to help save the water vole, one of the UK ’s most endangered mammals, is the theme of a new garden called ‘Ratty’s Refuge’ at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show, 20 – 24 May, 2008. The garden also celebrates the 100^th birthday of Kenneth Grahame’s classic book The Wind in the Willows, in which Ratty, a water vole, is the star. *Gardeners Urged to Help Save Ratty* Garden sponsor, The River & Rowing Museum hopes the garden will inspire and motivate waterside gardeners and any gardeners within 1km of a watercourse, to get involved in helping to secure Ratty’s survival. Gardeners are uniquely placed to help halt the water vole’s decline. Young water voles usually disperse and settle somewhere between 500m-1km from the site where they were born, travelling along watercourses until they find empty, suitable habitat in which they make their home. Gardens beside watercourses that have been planted and landscaped to benefit water voles can be hugely valuable in helping water vole populations to grow. The effect would be considerably increased if gardeners across Warwickshire work together to create a series of suitable habitats and join up fragmented water courses and bring populations of water voles together. Gardeners in Coventry , and Wolvey could help join two of Warwickshire’s vulnerable water vole colonies together. Louise Sutherland , Wetland Project Officer at Warwickshire Wildlife Trust says, “The water vole is declining in Warwickshire and nationally and gardeners can help halt its decline! We’re working to halt further population decline and encourage water voles to expand their range across cities and in the wider countryside. Creating wetland habitats in gardens can help to reduce the fragmentation of populations and can benefit a range of other species such a dragonflies and amphibians.” The Wildlife Trusts’ Top Tips for a Water Vole Friendly Garden : Tips, and other advice, also on (www.rattysrefuge.co.uk) If your garden backs on to a stream, river, canal or other watercourse: Leave a buffer strip (ideally two metres or more wide) of grasses and other plants along the water’s edge to provide food and cover for water voles. Mow the buffer strip once a year in autumn to limit scrub colonisation and increase plant diversity. Keep banksides open to encourage the lush grasses and other green plants water voles favour. Consider coppicing existing trees and shrubs to increase light levels if appropriate. If your garden is close to a river, stream, canal or other watercourse: Create a pond with an adjacent wetland area, lining the pond in the traditional way with clay if you can, rather than with butyl or other synthetic materials. Site your pond away from overhanging trees and check the location of service cables and drains before digging! Give your pond a varied bank profile, with banks of around 45 degrees for water voles, and shallower sloping areas that can utilised by amphibians and invertebrates. Ensure that the pond has areas where water is 25cm-50cm deep. Ensure there is open space approximately 10 cm deep along the base of at least one garden boundary to allow access for water voles and other wildlife. Create a shelf around the edge of the pond that can be planted with marginal plants such as Yellow Flag Iris and rushes. Use the Natural History Museum’s postcode plants database to find help choosing suitable native plants for your pond. (Access the database at www.rattysrefuge.co.uk) Make sure that you don’t buy any non-native invasive aquatic plants for your pond. Check out the links on www.rattysrefuge.co.uk for advice and information on which plants to avoid. Top tips for water use in the garden: Water is a finite resource and correct water use in the garden is vitally important to help reduce its waste. Water in the South East recommends: Using a mulch on the garden to help keep the ground moist and reduce evaporation Using water retaining products in pots and hanging baskets Not watering established trees, shrubs or lawns – they just don’t need it Watering plants directly around the roots Collecting rainwater from down pipes and guttering for watering the garden Only watering new lawns for around four weeks – established lawns don’t need watering Press contact: Louise Sutherland on 024 7630 8995 ENDS Notes to Editors: The water vole is Britain ’s fastest declining mammal. 1990 levels recorded a national water vole population of just over seven million across the UK . By 1998 numbers had crashed to less than 1 million, a decline of almost 90 per cent in just seven years. Predation by American Mink and poor watercourse management have accelerated its decline. The Government has recognised its plight and the water vole is now a protected species within the Wildlife and Countryside Act. The ‘Ratty’s Refuge’ garden demonstrates how native planting can create a green refuge for water voles and other wildlife as well as creating a beautiful garden. The garden’s ideas and planting scheme are based upon a small urban garden, but can be adopted by a garden of any size. The Garden’s website – www.rattysrefuge.co.uk - provides planting ideas and tips for water vole-friendly gardens as well as blogs and pictures charting the progress of River & Rowing Museum ’s Ratty’s Refuge at Chelsea . The water vole, the largest vole in Britain , is a herbivore. It eats a wide variety of native plants, seeds and berries and is particularly partial to sedges and reeds. The garden’s planting of native willows and moisture-loving plants provide the water vole with food and habitat (eg Reed Canary Grass Phalaris arundinacea and Yellow Flag Iris Iris pseudocorus). The garden’s small pond provides the visiting water vole with a supplementary habitat away from the main water source. The earth bank is at a 45⁰profile into which the water vole can burrow and nest.
	Last updated 11 April, 2008