Conservation
Our Founders Richard and Irene Tinklin were keen conservationists and especially focused on preserving Yorkshire Wildflowers. This has grown into a specialist library of over 150 varieties at the nursery and are distributed to projects across the UK.
Planting of wildflowers, trees and hedgerows began right from the start of the life of the nursery over 30 years ago on what was then a 10 acre field. Over time and donation of an additional 4 acres, a planting and conservation plan was written and later adapted with the experience of trials with various tree varieties on the previous quarry donatated 4 acres. The rear of the commercial nursery plays host to a central woodland of over 2500 trees, a natural rain water served pond, a wildflower meadow and we are midway through establishing a new willow maze and bird feeding station. We have a new visitor hut for 2021 with information about the work at Mires Beck and the habitat onsite.
With the support of guidance from The Woodland Trust, our original plan is now being enhanced with further hedgerow to improve biodiversity onsite. This gives us a much broader education base from which to teach our service users the management skills to maintain the land, but also the knowledge of what plant and wildlife species exist at Mires Beck.
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We work alongside important work carried out by local conservation organisations such as The Woodmeadow Trust and Yorkshire Woldlife Trust. We supply our wildflowers, Phragmites and trees across the county. Below is a testimomial from the owners of The Woodmeadow Trust.
We have long been extremely grateful to Mires Beck for being a reliable producer of wildflower plug plants sown from locally sourced seed. Having seen their seed collection in the brown paper bags I know they are trustworthy. What’s more, if they don’t have enough of a particular species or we want to put in a special order they are very responsive, working out timings with us and sorting our requests. What’s more their plants are beautifully healthy and they are now able to deliver, another major plus point, and their prices are very reasonable.
This year we were delighted with a large batch of young native tree and shrub plants grown in rootrainters, again all healthy and ready to plant. I asked Steve for a bit of advice about the hedge we were establishing and he was full of useful advice and planting tips and clearly had a huge wealth of experience to draw from which is invaluable.
At Woodmeadow Trust, not only do we consider ourselves particularly fortunate to have such a fine nursery growing wildflowers of local provenance but the fact that at the same time Mires Beck is a charity, providing work experience and social therapeutic horticulture to adults who live with many challenges, is remarkable. I trust they will continue to thrive: they will certainly be our number one go to nursery!
This year the service users are conducting their first woodland audit of trees and tree health and also recording bird and butterfly species for the national data bases. We often seek the help of volunteers to assist with planting, woodland maintenance and auditing projects.
Mires Beck Nursery has provided the Alder Buckthorn for Hull Butterfly City project and we are proud to partner the city to encourage increasing of the endangered Brimstone Butterfly. population . In this aim we are growing much higher numbers of this tree which this particular butterfly makes home and are also planting more onsite.
This Autumn we will start to join national activities on moth sightings.
Our existing woodland and recently planted Anniversary Wood have trees available for adoption and dedication and we can supply trees from the tree nursery for conservation projects and carbon offsetting. We have over 6000 trees planted onsite and have planted a further 350 as part of the ongoing conservation planting at Mires Beck Nursery.
Our woodland is home to many species of birds, vertebrates and a small resident parcel of deer. The undergrowth and habitat highways within the wood are home to all manor of invertebrates we often look for in our bug hunt activities in the school holidays. Our service users are taught about the wildlife and the tree species that we have at Mires Beck and often go on foreaging excerises. The variesties of tree species grow an array of fruit and nuts to feed the wildlife which visit and live in the wood.
We supply wildflower seed grown onsite and both Phragmites and Luzula’s for conservation purposes and waterside planting management. There is a large natural pond next to our tree nursery and we regularly run pond dipping activities on event days and in the school holidays.
We have the expertise to help you design and plan either your garden pond , or any larger scale ponds including the planting which needs to take place. If you wish to book an appointment with our Habitats Supervisor or book a site visit to a particular location please contact us.
Our site is home to The Great Crested Newt, a nationally protected species we have embraced in our message of conservation and safeguarding as the gatekeepers for the nursery in our recent re branding.