21st Jun 2022
Next up in our client origin stories is the Wildlife Garden Project founded by Laura Turner. What I love about this story is how it shows that something wonderful can be created from a desire to make a difference, finding something you love and applying your skills to it. Such a positive story for the start of the summer and at a time when we can all take Laura's lead and do more for wildlife. Over to you Laura...
Hello! I’m Laura. Before I started the Wildlife Garden Project back in 2010, I was completely new to the idea of wildlife gardening. I was working as a freelance videographer making videos for small local businesses. I was loving my job, but becoming increasingly concerned with the growing problems facing our planet. I wanted to do my bit in some small way, so I started looking for a conservation based project I could work on in my spare time.
At the time, I had just started renting my first house with a small garden and I began researching things I could do to attract wildlife. The concept of wildlife gardening appealed to me straight away – this was somewhere where I, as an individual, could make a difference to help conserve the struggling wildlife in my local patch. Wildlife gardening wasn’t a new concept, but it was far less known about than it is today, and so I started forming a plan to inspire others to make these small but important changes in their gardens.
I believe film is one of the most powerful mediums we have to communicate important messages, and so I decided it was the perfect way to demonstrate how to garden for wildlife. With little to no knowledge myself, I gathered a team of experts and volunteers to help make tutorial videos on everything from building a bird box to growing a wildflower meadow. With the help of my little brother Michael, we built a website to house the videos as well as lots of articles, tips and advice to help people create their own wildlife gardens.
In 2014, I started my own company, Fuzzfox, making videos for charities and local businesses. This tied in perfectly with the Wildlife Garden Project. Not only did it mean I had the equipment and skills to make tutorial videos, but importantly, it paid my bills whilst I devoted my spare time to the Wildlife Garden Project.
In the 12 years since forming, I’ve learnt so much from my work on the project, as well as gaining knowledge shared by all the experts who so kindly dedicated their time and experience to help make videos and write articles for the website. A few years ago, I managed to buy my first house with a garden which I have been slowly but surely transforming into a haven for wildlife. Finally having my own patch means that I’ve been able to put more of the techniques I’d learnt into practice and I now get visited by a huge array of birds, insects and mammals, including badgers! I’ve even dug a small pond which the gang of sparrows that hang out in my hedges love to bathe in.
In 2019, I was lucky enough to acquire a stand at Birdfair, the UK’s biggest wildlife festival (nicknamed the wildlife Glastonbury!). A few weeks before the event I had a phone call from a wonderful woman called Tina. She’d found us on the Birdfair website and saw that we were new to the event. She asked me, ‘Would it be ok if I bring Chris Packham to your stand to do a book signing?’ After much screaming and excitement, I gave her a huge YES. The event was amazing, we met so many wonderful people and gave wildlife gardening advice to lots of new people. Meeting Chris Packham was the icing on the cake.
Tina and I stayed in touch, and many phone calls and fits of laughter later, we realised we shared so many of the same aspirations and decided we wanted to work together. I had been wanting to move the Project forward for a while, and so in 2021, we registered the Wildlife Garden Project as a Community Interest Company (CIC) along with bird and moth fanatic and expert Tom Shields.
As a not-for-profit, we are now able to apply for funding which will allow us to spread our wildlife gardening message even further. In fact, we have just secured our first lot of funding which will allow us to develop a project that Tina and I have been chatting about for over two years. Exciting times!
We have so many plans for the future, but at the heart of it all is to make wildlife gardening easy and accessible to everyone. We are all still working on the project in our spare time, but we hope in the future that we may be able to find a way to earn a small income from it so that we can afford to devote even more time to the cause. But for now, we have lots more videos planned, as well as the funded project which we hope to be able to announce in the coming months!
We are always looking for collaborations and so if you’d like to discuss working together, please get in touch!
Find Laura online at:
wildlifegardenproject.com
Instagram: @wildlifegardenproject
Twitter: @WildlifeGardenP
Facebook: @wildlifegardenproject
YouTube: youtube.com/user/wildlifegardenfilm
fuzzfox.com
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