Lee Peart finds out how Oakland Care’s innovative wildlife garden at Maplewood Court in Maidstone, Kent is proving to be a win-win for residents, staff, the local community and the environment.

Officially launched by celebrity gardener Joe Swift in September, Maplewood Court wildlife garden was created from a bare piece of land at the back of the 72-bed luxury care home which opened in June last year. The biodiverse space was created with the help of Kent Wildlife Trust and grant funding from Low Carbon Kent.

“It’s a wild garden that’s been designed to encourage biodiversity and encourage wildlife,” head of marketing, Rachel Tiff, says as we wander along the garden’s winding, wheelchair friendly path.

The garden has a wide array of innovative elements designed to encouraged local wildlife and biodiversity.

‘Hedgehog highways’ are dotted around the base of the garden’s perimeter fence while log piles have been established in shady, damp areas to encourage other wildlife such as insects, toads and birds. Elsewhere simple bug hotels near wildflowers provide a perfect home for insects.

Flowering plants have been planted throughout the garden to attract a wide variety of insect, while fruit trees have been established to provide food for birds. Further sustainable innovations in the garden include composting bins and water butts to collect rainwater.

Next to the fruit trees a plot of ground has been set aside for an allotment for residents to grow vegetables in the spring. Residents will be able to sell their vegetables along with their home-made jams, mint sauce and chutneys they currently offer at the home’s ‘Made in Maplewood’ store. Proceeds from the store are reinvested in providing fun events and activities for residents.

The garden was created with the help of the home’s residents who submitted ideas for its design and contributed plants from their family gardens.

Christine Smith, 75, says she was looking forward to cuttings from her family’s garden taking root.

“I’ve contributed a cutting from a Japanese Maple that I’ve always loved,” she says. “It will be fantastic to see it every day and share it with friends here and the community.”

The planting of the Maple was one of the activities carried out by residents in the garden in September to mark Green Week and Green Month at Oakland Care. During the celebration of the environment staff from the home also helped litter pick at a local festival.

As well as providing an uplifting environment and meaningful activities, Oakland hopes to welcome schoolchildren and other interested groups to the garden to help monitor the effect the development is having on biodiversity as the area develops over the next couple of years.

The wildlife garden is the latest innovation from Oakland Care which has become a market leader in sustainability in social care. The company proudly boasts the title of being the UK’s only certified carbon neutral care home group with Maplewood Court having an ‘excellent’ BREEAM rating, a scheme that assesses a building’s sustainability and environmental credentials.

Tiff says Oakland’s forthcoming Harpenden care home will be the provider’s first net zero care home, while plans were already under way to roll out wildlife gardens in its eight other homes beginning with the recently launched Hyden Heights in Hildenborough, Kent.

“Our staff are really engaged in our sustainable ethos,” Mazza says. “They pick up ideas everywhere.”

Home manager Joanna Mazza says the wildlife garden is just one of a constantly evolving array of sustainable ideas thought up by staff at Maplewood. Staff hold a ‘green initiative’ meeting every day to come up with new ideas.

Innovations around the home include a battery recycling box for the local community, electric car charging points, newspapers recycled for cat litter trays at a local shelter, coffee grounds recycling, a tin can crusher, a cycle to work scheme and upcycling toiletries donated by staff at Maplewood for a local women’s refuge , to name but a few. Innovations in the pipeline include a ‘utility tracker’ to monitor and help reduce energy consumption.

Mazza holds meetings with Oakland’s head of business and sustainability, Aaron White, to discuss the home’s initiatives.

“It’s about establishing a baseline for everybody in the business to work from,” Mazza says

With my garden tour over, I come away inspired by the Oakland team’s boundless creativity and passion for sustainability. It’s something we could all learn from.

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