Woodside Walled Garden

Our nest boxes are now wired with cameras

Our Friends from the Borders group of the RSPB are developing a “Homes for Wildlife” Garden within our walled garden. They’ve worked really hard to make great progress with this ambitious project and the garden was officially opened by Ann McCall, Regional Director if the RSPB in June 2011. We also collaborated with the RSPB to create a floral display at Gardening Scotland 2011, held at the Royal Highland showground.

Read more about our Award Winning Stand at Gardening Scotland.

Huge progress has been made in the garden – the nest boxes are all wired up with cameras, although the birds declined to nest in them last year! However visitors can watch the birds feeding from our many bird feeders via the cameras from the shelter of the RSPB “hut”.

The garden was part funded by an Awards for All Grant, and aims to show visitors how they can create an attractive garden which also benefits wildlife. Of course, not every garden in big enough for a large pond like ours, but a small pool or even a birdbath will encourage birds to visit your garden. We hope you can take away some of our ideas and enhance the habitat in your garden.

The local RSPB volunteers are always interested in recruiting new volunteers to help with the Woodside Homes for Wildlife Garden – you don’t have to be a member of the RSPB to join the volunteers group, and it doesn’t matter if you can only spare a couple of hours a year!

If you love birds then you’ll enjoy watching them at close quarters from the warm comfort of the cafe. We fill up the feeders each morning and the birds quickly empty them again! Recent visitors to the feeders are chaffinches, blue tits, great tits, coal tits, nuthatches and bramblings. The feeders that cling on to the cafe windows are popular with the birds and are one of our best selling items. We sell the Observer Window Feeder and the Suction Hook through our online shop under the “Sundries” catagory.

We also currently have a very welcome guest in the garden shop who sings happily away all day. One of the local RSPB group members caught him on camera – here he looking very festive!

Our tame robin who keeps up company in the Garden Shop at Woodside Plant Centre.