Hello, this is Jo from the Wild Bunch. What a year 2025 has been for the Wild Bunch and all wildlife gardeners! Once again, our Wild Bunch community has shown what can happen when people choose to garden with nature rather than against it. Together we’ve created countless pockets of habitats that combined make a real ecological impact.
This year the Wild Bunch held 12 Wild Bunch gatherings, welcoming both longstanding members and plenty of new faces. Each session brought something different, from hedgehog habitats and pond-building, climate-friendly gardening, composting for wildlife, to new and innovative gardening techniques such as Hugerkultur. As always, the generosity in sharing knowledge and experiences has been the heartbeat of this group.
We continued our popular fortnightly Wild Bunch column in the Frome Times, publishing 26 articles in 2025. These pieces reached thousands of local readers and helped inspire a wider community to try wildlife-friendly gardening at home.
Alongside the column, our monthly newsletter continued to grow. We sent 12 newsletters this year, filled with seasonal advice and events. Our mailing list has now grown to over 250 subscribers, showing just how many people in and around Frome care about creating space for nature.
Nationally, the picture reinforces just how important gardeners are. According to the RHS’s State of Gardening Report (2025), gardens now cover nearly 960,000 hectares – more than three times the area of the UK’s nature reserves combined. Private gardens support over half of the UK’s butterflies, reptiles and amphibians, and more than 40% of birds and mammals. In a time of ecological pressure, wildlife-friendly gardening is no longer a hobby, it’s a vital contribution to nature conservation and recovery.
In 2026 we are excited to be bringing some changes and ideas. We are planning to introduce some evening events and more hands-on, practical sessions, so watch this space.
Thank you for every seed you planted, every corner you left wild, and every creature you made space for in 2025.
We wish you a wonderful Christmas. Here’s to an even more nature-filled 2026!
