Helping the climate, nature and the environment
St Mary’s church is playing its part in the community’s climate and nature initiatives – with a range of activities explained at the Cream Tea event on 21st July.
The overall aims are to raise awareness and understanding of St Mary’s impact on the climate and environment, to propose actions that can be taken by the church to inspire lifestyle changes among the congregation and to communicate regularly about the Eco Church activities and progress.
Amongst initiatives to help heal our planet and encourage people to live in a manner which is caring and kind, the following activities were highlighted at the event:
Recycling: not only does the Church recycle its own waste responsibly, but it is also a place where people can recycle some things that can’t be put in EHDC’s household recycling bins. People can bring stamps, plastic milk bottle tops and batteries.
Church Flowers: St Mary’s has become well known and often visited, for its wonderful displays of flora and fauna. Shop-bought flowers may have travelled a very long way to get here and may not be cultivated in a nature-friendly manner. The church’s regular flower arrangers use beautiful wild growing flowers and leafy offerings from the nearby countryside and their own eco-friendly gardens.
Church Utilities and Maintenance: all old buildings struggle to meet high green standards but St Mary’s aims to do the very best when considering repairs and improvements. They look to reduce the Church’s carbon footprint at every opportunity.
Buriton Churchyard: churchyards can often be a haven for flowers and wildlife at a time when, in many places, once-familiar species are becoming scarce as habitats disappear. And Buriton’s is an excellent example, helping a wide diversity of plants and animals. The improved grassland contains a good variety of plants, including Ladies Bedstraw, Ox-eye Daisy and four species of Speedwell. In the spring there are, in turn, wonderful displays of Snowdrops, Primroses and Cowslips. Some areas are left unmown in the early part of summer, allowing the flowers to bloom and set seed.
The mixture of mature trees and shrubs act as shelter and nesting places for many birds, including greenfinch, chaffinch and goldfinch, blue and great tits, wrens, robins and field wagtails. A butterfly corner was planted with buddleia, hemp agrimony, nettle-leaved bellflower and woad to provide nectar. Holly Blue, Orange-tip, Brimstone and Small Tortoiseshell butterflies can be seen and a Death’s Head Hawkmoth has also been sighted.
Many tombstones are covered in lichens and the renowned botanist, Dr Francis Rose, identified 69 different species in the churchyard. Lichens are found in a variety of colours, a range of shapes & sizes, and they grow at the North Pole, the South Pole and everywhere in between. A local lichen expert, Duncan Wright, was on hand during the Cream Tea event and provided many visitors with a short tour so that they could begin to learn about and appreciate them.
