Dene Wood: lessons from our space for nature (and people)

Claire Gribben tells us all about the Dene Wood nature area in Cottingham, an area for people and wildlife, which has been transformed by the community.

The idea for Dene Wood nature area, started over a year ago after a conversation with local councillor Phil Redshaw on the potential for more wildlife friendly spaces in Cottingham (particular on verges with standard mown grass). Alongside Phil’s support, and with the help of some lovely community members and Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s Andy Steele I am pleased to say it has developed into what I am calling an “experimental site”, and we are getting many encouraging comments from local residents pleased with what we have achieved so far.

Hopefully the following will provide inspiration to others who would like to do similar projects in their own patch.

Image of a group at people at work in a woodland on the grassy floor. They are all doing garden work with spades and wheelbarrows. — November 2024, Ground preparation for yellow rattle seeds

Preparing the Ground- in November, we held a community day, planting bulbs and hedgerow trees alongside an experimental patch of yellow rattle as the basis of our wildflower area.

Like many similar spaces, the verge is quite fertile (from years of cuttings being left as well as clay soil) which means that the grass is very dominant over other species. Wildflowers do much better in areas of low fertility and grass levels, and people often get disheartened when they sow wildflowers expecting an instant colourful display, and it comes to nothing.

Based on this, our first task was to sow the rattle (which has a parasitic preference for the standard grass), but as I said, it was a bit of an experiment so we waited with bated breath. First sprouts appeared in mid April (wahoo!).

Word cloud generated from residents reasons to love nature depicted on a wooden board stading at the entrance to a woodland on overgrown verges next to a mown oath into the woodland. — Word cloud generated from residents reasons to love nature

Set backs: Despite signage and agreement from the council, unfortunately we had two mowing incidents. Luckily this happened before the yellow rattle shoots had emerged so no damage incurred!. We then added additional signage around the area to block off the mower (and spoke to him when he came round, he is very nice by the way!). We also had a few months when our signs were thrown into Dene Wood Pond, but after much perseverance (and a little polite word with the culprit), this seems to have stopped (fingers crossed).

Solidarity with Butterfly City: In March we planted some additional Buckthorns to supplement the hedgerows (as well as build further habitat for the ever expanding HEY Brimstone butterfly colony). My neighbours have already reported Brimstone sightings in the area, so we thought any extra trees to build a sustainable habitat would be helpful! Given the widespread and prolific sightings of caterpillars across the region this year (as at end June 2024), I am thinking this initiative has been very successful - though it does feel like the Brimstones have a habit of laying on small recently planted trees that are not able to support the numbers!

View of a bat box on a tree in a woodland — June 2024 - putting up bat boxes

Expanding: In early June, we joined up with Cottingham Wildspaces to do some litter picking, as well as put up some bat boxes in Dene Wood that had been donated. When I first moved to Cottingham (7 years ago), I often saw bats flying around, but sadly no sightings for a while. Its hard to know when they disappeared, as sometimes you don’t notice an absence of something until a specific thing draws your attention to it (there also seems a lot less insects this year). Hopefully the bats will see their new selection of homes and feel inclined to move back in!

In August we will harvest some of the yellow rattle prior to cutting (Alan and I are determined to buy a scythe to do this, possibly inspired by episodes of Poldark- I recommend a quick google search if this means nothing to you). We will either use this to supplement and extend the wildflower area, or if we have enough we might be able to pass to other nature groups.

Ongoing visibility: To reassure local residents that the area is being looked after, we have kept mown pathways through the long grass. For such a small space, I have been incredibly heartened to see the number of children that are getting such joy from running down the little paths amongst the long grass. All it takes is 10 minutes outside doing a bit of work (which is all that’s really needed), and people are coming past and chatting to us about what we are doing, and how they want more areas like it. As you know, we do a lot of work on campaigning with Friends of the Earth, but this small area set aside for nature has probably been the activity that has generated the most positive comments. It has reinforced the existing feeling I have that most people love nature and are inspired to protect it.

Key lessons so far

Patience: the space will not look perfect the first year, especially as yellow rattle is often difficult to establish. It is also a learning process- understand the light and shade of an area (literally and figuratively), and adapt to what works.

Communication: use signs and specific mown areas to ensure the residents know what you are doing and that it hasn’t just been abandoned by the council.

A relaxed attitude: there may be set backs, but be persistent and enjoy what does work. For every one person who might want to spoil what you are doing, there are 100 or more who love it!. A nature area dosnt need much work (which can actually be a bit frustrating to residents who want to get involved), but think of other activities like litter picking (or nature spotting) to keep interest.

Yellow rattle. My understand is these flowers are quite hard to establish so I have put our initial success down to several things- an enthusiastic group in the initial scarifying of the land (rattle likes to be sown on bare soil), as well as a cold snap just after sowing.