The Great Outdoors!

The Great Outdoors

We are delighted to announce that this summer our garden centre, Country Garden Plant Centre, will be holding a family festival, The Great Outdoors’, together with Shropshire Wildlife Trust, in support of their ‘Scrapheap Challenge’.

A Shropshire scrapyard covering 6 hectares which has closed after 50 years has been bought as a nature reserve by Shropshire Wildlife Trust. The former car breaker’s yard is covered in 100,000 tyres, thousands of litres of disused oil and tonnes of wing mirrors and bumpers, which will all need to be removed before it can be restored for nature.

The scrapyard lies upon one of Britain’s largest peatbogs, known as the Marches Mosses. This vast and extremely wildlife-rich landscape spans nearly 950 hectares and is an internationally important peatbog - one of the rarest habitats on earth. The Marches Mosses are designated as a Special Area of Conservation and the individual parts are National Nature Reserves, managed by Natural England.

In order to return the site to a condition where wildlife can thrive, Shropshire Wildlife Trust, with specialist help, now needs to clean acres of concrete of 50 years’ worth of waste and clear out several oil sump pits before covering the site with peat and allowing the bog habitat to regenerate and species such as sundew (a carnivorous plant), cotton grass and curlews to return.

The Great Outdoors festival will take place on Sunday 03^rd June, from 10am – 4pm, and will be free entry. Shropshire Wildlife Trust will be putting on a range of children’s activities including mini beast hunt, ‘Sneaking Squirrels’, and campfire and marshmallow s’mores.

There will be stalls for all the family to enjoy, including Dr Emma Lawrence, author and illustrator of ‘Little Nature Explorer’ children’s books, The Shropshire Toy Shop, selling ethically sourced and fair trade traditional toys, Clivewood Alpacas, selling alpaca products, courses and experiences, Rowton Brewery, supplying real ales, together with many, many more!

There will also be a charity raffle:

1^st Prize: Self-catering holiday accommodation for up to 6 people between May and October in the French Alps (terms and conditions apply).
https://www.ownersdirect.co.uk/accommodation/p8050108#summary

2^nd Prize Single Will Voucher worth £180 from Clarkes Law
http://www.clarkeslaw.co.uk/

3^rd Prize A £50 open voucher from Experience Days
www.experiencedays.co.uk

The lucky winner will be able to redeem the voucher against the experience of their choice, whether it’s a spa day, supercar driving experience, or an indulgent afternoon tea.

4^th Prize £50 gift voucher for Country Garden Plant Centre, redeemable at the garden centre.

5^th Prize A bottle of Tanners Claret and Tanners Gascony White wine

www.tanners-wines.co.uk

A huge thank you to all of these businesses for their generous donations.

Tickets will be available shortly in our shop, at Shropshire Wildlife Trust’s shop, and online at £2.50 each, watch this space!

The garden centre and tearoom will be open as usual.

We hope some of our local customers will join us. We look forwards to seeing you there!