The end of July saw the launch, not only of our new shop here in the orchard, but also the Putley Wildlife Action and Advisory Group.

Our parish of Putley formulated a "Parish Plan" several years ago, which among many other things, identified the need for a Biodiversity survey.  This was undertaken a couple of years ago and identified many ancient hedgerows that would be the perfect habitat for dormice.

In fact several dormice have been spotted in neighbouring hedgerows, and so it seemed the perfect launch event for the group to encourage the proliferation of this endangered species by introducing "dormice tubes" into the wildlife friendly hedgrows of Dragon Orchard.

With any luck, these nest boxes will help numbers increase around our orchard boundary, already home to a wide variety of flora and fauna.