Flower power rules in London

Mr. Green enjoys a bottle of wine on a Sunday and it’s a great way to vote with your money.

He opts for organic or fairtrade, but recently we came across a company who support somebody I revere too – Mother Nature.

The Banrock Station vineyard is an Australian wine company. They have nurtured dry wasteland in Australia into a sustainable ecosystem that flourishes with a wealth of wildlife.

At the heart of their business is the awareness that without the goodness of the earth there would be no wine! As a way of saying ‘thank you’ to Mother Nature, Banrock Station has donated £2.5m to 97 environmental projects in 13 countries since trading.

Their latest awareness raising campaign is one that will be sure to bring a smile to your face.

It’s the world’s first living billboard made entirely of British flowers! The billboard, outside the Westfield Shopping Centre in London, uses more than 800 native British plants and is a beautiful and heart warming representation of how everything we eat and drink has a connection with the land. An interactive pump allows shoppers to water the flowers as they pass so they too can give nature ‘a helping hand.’ The billboard will remain on display for two weeks then the flowers will be replanted in local communities.

This campaign marks the launch of Banrock Station’s new special edition wines, with proceeds going towards helping Natural England to preserve 2,100 acres of British wildflower meadows.

As you might remember, we love the butterflies and bees here at Chez Green. Each year we plant a wildflower ‘bee garden’ and welcome our fuzzy, buzzy creatures in. Bees are responsible for pollinating one third of the food we eat so it’s important to look after them and provide them with food.

The UK has lost 97% of its wildflower meadows since the 1930s and this has a huge impact on our pollinator insects. For example 76% of British Butterfly species are declining at a rapid rate and numbers of bumblebees in Britain have fallen by over 60 per cent since 1970.

With the disappearance of our British wildflower meadows due to changing agricultural practices it’s even more vital that homeowners offer up part of their gardens for wildlife.

It needn’t be difficult either; many wildflowers actually prefer poor soil and neglect, making them ideal for areas of your property that are hard to maintain. If you want to get started with some wildflowers, Banrock station are giving away 5,000 packets of seeds

Banrock Station’s ‘nature friendly’ wines are available in Co-Op and Morrisons. For every bottle of special edition Banrock station wine bought form the Co-Op, they will donate 5p to help save British bees. Through working with Morrisons, Banrock Station have been able to donate £30,000 to Natural England to help save 2100 acres of Wildflower meadows.

Keep up with their latest information on Facebook.