Wild flower garden and bird feeding area in Glasgow

Business: Carillion Health

Location: Langlands Building, Southern General Glasgow

Date: September 2007

In partnership with: Local Education Authority, CSpace: Local Community Project, RSPB

Business benefits:

Positive working relationship with outside organisations and Trust

Positive employee involvement

Enhancing the environment

Forming relationships with local schools that could lead to taking on future employees

Community Benefits:

Forming ongoing relationships with local business

Providing an area of educational and environmental value

Improving local biodiversity, patient recreational areas and forming long term positive relationships with outside organisations were achieved by Carillion investing in a wild flower garden project.

The wild garden was started approximately three years ago with the involvement of the local schools. This year we contacted the local community project officer who has worked closely with both the schoolchildren and us in coming up with a programme for developing the garden.

The children have designed the layout of the garden with the help of a landscape gardener and researched the type of wild flowers that they wish to grow. We are aiming to plant and grow predominately wild varieties that are native to Scotland. Over the upcoming school year the children will visit the site on a weekly basis to help establish the garden and also develop this as part of a school project on the environment.

The children with the help of Carillion staff, particularly James Stevenson who has committed a great deal of time to planning, digging and researching, will help to plant the varieties of wild flower, look after them and the rest of the garden.

Along with this they will receive talks and obtain advice from the local RSPB on feeding birds and the type of food that they require. The children will then design a bird table that will be built and placed in the garden.

We wish to provide an area that will attract birds and butterflies and which will be aesthetically pleasing for the patients. The children will also spend time talking to the patients as part of their visits to the site.