EarthShare

14/09/2026

A celebration for Bernie, our goldenrod crab spider. A species apparently not usually recorded in Newquay, though we’ve seen them here for at least two years. When we submitted our sighting it was questioned for being “out of range”, but Bernie is very much here, thriving in our garden.

We met her on 14 July when a butterfly refused to lift from the golden marjoram. A gentle tug revealed the truth. A tiny but incredibly strong crab spider holding her ground. Since then we’ve watched her hunt with astonishing skill, taking prey many times her size and helping regulate insect populations naturally.

Bernie prefers open‑centred flowers like golden marjoram, single roses, anything where pollinators can actually reach the pollen (Double roses may look pretty, but they’re almost useless for wildlife).

Recently she vanished leaving us worried, but we found her again. She was inside a perfectly glued leaf teepee, her egg sac tucked safely inside. She’s guarding it now and we hope to see her offspring next year.

If you want a wildlife‑friendly garden, please be careful when pruning. Crab spiders and many other species overwinter in leaf shelters and heavy pruning can wipe out eggs, pupae, and next year’s wildlife before it even begins.

Bernie has been a joy to watch, a tiny reminder of how much life thrives when we give it space. 💛🕷️

13/07/2026

Beautiful Fairpark Cemetery, a Paradise for Urban Wildlife
(A poem‑story of today and of a wider failing)

Between sunrise and the soft hush of morning,
the meadow breathed.
Long grass lifted its seed heads like lanterns
and the first dancers arrived.
Black silhouettes of ringlet butterflies rising in spirals,
a quiet celebration of being invited in.
Weeks of open‑armed welcome,
weeks of boasting online about wildflowers,
weeks of saying, look what we’ve done for nature.
And nature believed you.

Large whites glided like folded paper,
small whites flickered like sparks.
Meadow browns stitched the air,
gatekeepers patrolled their gentle borders.
An Essex skipper
darted through the stems,
small tortoiseshells warmed their wings,
a tremendous peacock unfurled its fire,
and a red admiral traced its royal path.
No orange tips this year.
Their absence a quiet concern.

A privet hawk moth
and a hummingbird hawk moth hovered
over a strand of false valerian
growing from a Cornish hedge
where someone had been stealing stones,
as if even the walls of this place
were being slowly undone.

A giant field cricket rustled,
A mouse‑sized, ancient, defiant.
Thousands of harvestmen
scrambled through the stems,
their tiny feet tickling my sun‑scorched feet.
Three beautiful demoiselles shimmered like dropped jewels.
Shiney dock beetles, cardinal beetles and hoverflies, thousands, maybe millions,
painted the cream yarrow tops in shimmering green, red, gold and black.
Froglets, no bigger than thumbnails,
leapt from dew‑dark shadows between tussoks.
And above it all,
two emperor dragonflies
fought for dominion,
skimming the grass tops
like blue‑green blades.

This was the meadow’s morning.
This was its brief, perfect life.

And then —
10:30.

The red tractor arrived.
Quiet, gentle, almost apologetic
as it rolled across the cemetery meadow
but carrying the weight of a decision
that would end everything.

I cannot imagine
what it felt like down there
in those last few minutes,
the panic, the scramble,
the sudden collapse of a world
that had been promised safety.

By midday,
all that remained was destruction.
A suffocating pile of clippings.
A few grounded bumblebees
dragging themselves along the path,
wings torn, futures gone.

This is not nature recovery.
This is mismanagement.
This is biodiversity‑squashing behaviour
dressed up as care.
This is handing out the cake
with open arms,
inviting wildlife in for weeks,
and then snatching it away
in a single hour.

Permanent spaces should be set aside —
true refuges,
managed with understanding,
not with convenience.
Cut once in spring,
once at summer’s end
when life has finished its cycle.
If soil fertility is the goal,
leave the cuttings.
If wildflower diversity is the goal,
cut and collect —
and life will thank you later.

But today,
in Beautiful Fairpark Cemetery,
a paradise for urban wildlife,
the invitation was revoked.
The welcome mat was pulled away.
And the meadow died
under the wheels
of a red tractor
that should never have been there.

As someone who cares deeply
about nature recovery,
it is heartbreaking
to walk through parks and gardens
managed in ways that invite wildlife in
only to crush it through poor planning.
More heartbreaking still
when county land managers
try to pass this off
as progress.

It isn’t progress.
It isn’t recovery.
It’s loss —
avoidable, unnecessary,
and repeated every year.

Side Note (Land Management Contradictions)
Cornwall’s new Biodiversity Strategy — publicly available and widely promoted —
sets out clear principles:
long‑term habitat creation,
protection of ecological networks,
and management that supports full life cycles
of insects, birds, amphibians, and plants.

What happened today contradicts those principles.
Cutting long grass at peak insect activity
destroys breeding sites,
kills larvae,
removes nectar sources,
and collapses the very biodiversity
the strategy claims to protect.

This isn’t alignment with policy.
It’s a breach of it —
a failure of practice,
a failure of understanding,
and a failure of responsibility.

24/06/2026

🌞 Polwhele Permaculture Gardens – Heat Advisory Update for Today

Good morning, everyone.
A quick update for those planning to visit or volunteer today.

According to the Met Office forecast for Newquay, we’re expecting high temperatures and strong sun exposure. As Polwhele Permaculture Gardens is a fully south‑facing site with little natural shade, the heat risk is currently too high to stay out for long.

Because of this, we’ll only be on site for a couple of hours this morning, and we expect to wrap up by around midday. It’s just not worth the health risk for anyone — volunteers, visitors and pets.

We’re hoping to be back to normal next week, weather permitting.
If you’d like updates, feel free to check in with us about site hours or volunteering plans.

And for anyone we met at the National Emergency Briefing who was hoping to meet up or continue the conversation, please do send us a private message. With the weather being so unpredictable at the moment, it’s the safest way to make sure we don’t miss each other.

Stay cool, stay hydrated, and look after yourselves today.
The gardens will be there when we get back. Well, most of it!

23/06/2026

National Emergency Briefing at Seaspace, Porth

Last night’s National Emergency Briefing at Seaspace, Porth, hosted by Newquay Town Council, was powerful, sobering, and strangely hopeful all at once. Thank you to Seaspace for making the space available and to everyone who came, listened, questioned, and cared.

The film itself was hard-hitting. As an ecologist, I thought I already knew the worst of it, but it revealed truths I hadn’t yet realised. We filled out a short questionnaire on climate anxiety before and after the screening, and for me, optimism felt low at first. I’ve seen first‑hand how land managers interact with our green spaces. Sometimes for better, often for worse, and the film didn’t shy away from the reality we’re facing.

But afterwards, something shifted. Local organisations, businesses, action groups and individuals and partners stood up and shared what they’re doing to tackle the problems raised in the briefing. I spoke about Polwhele Permaculture Gardens and the work we’re doing to build resilience from the soil up in the heart of Treloggan. Others shared their projects, their struggles, their successes. Small groups of people making real adaptations for real temperature rise, ecological thinking and community resilience.
To everyone I met from other like‑minded projects: you are all amazing. Truly. Hearing your stories was a reminder that none of us are doing this alone.

Walking home with my teenage son, the air hot, humid, strangely pleasant for 11 pm, but not normal, we talked about the evening. About how the work I’ve been doing, often feeling like an uphill battle, maybe hasn’t been such a waste of time after all. We were feeling pretty good… until we ran into the flail (Come on, CC highways). But that’s for another post.

If representatives from Cornwall Council or our MP had been in the room, here’s what I would have liked to have said:

🌱 To the Public
Everything we rely on. Our food, water, health, safety, stable weather, and affordable living depend on nature. When nature breaks down, everything else becomes more expensive, more fragile, and more unpredictable. You don’t need to be a scientist to understand this. Healthy soil grows food, healthy hedges protect wildlife, and healthy ecosystems protect us.

Small actions matter: how we cut grass, what we plant in our gardens, how we treat soil, how we shop, value hedges and trees and how we support local food systems and growers. Resilience starts at home, in communities and in culture.

🌿 To Cornwall Council Officers and Workers
The biggest challenge we face is not intention; it’s integration. Nature Recovery, Forest for Cornwall, INNS Strategy, Highways, Planning and Enforcement, BNG monitoring, heritage protection… all operating separately, even though the natural world is one system.

We need joined‑up strategies, ecological literacy across departments, clear grass‑cutting regimes, permanent patch habitats, accurate interpretation of policy and legislation, BNG that survives beyond developer handover, agro‑ecological food systems integrated into urban planning and monitoring that is enforceable, not symbolic.

Cornwall can lead cultural change but only if departments work together.

🏛️ To MPs and National Decision‑Makers
Climate, biodiversity, food security, health, national security, and economic stability are interdependent. Policy cannot treat them as separate.
Local authorities need integrated frameworks, clear national guidance on BNG enforcement, protection for ancient green infrastructure structures like Cornish hedges, funding for ecological expertise and training urban habitat managers, support for community agro‑ecology and urban food systems, national standards for grass‑cutting and habitat management and alignment between planning, enforcement, nature recovery, and climate adaptation.

Without national integration, local action will always fall short.

🌍 And finally. The thing I wish I could have said out loud
The public deserves to know this briefing happened. It should be on every TV channel, every radio station, every school assembly, every council meeting. We need to embed ecological thinking and now resilience culturally, because we didn’t act fast enough, into culture through play, schools, colleges, universities, planning and policy.

These issues are not separate.
They are the same side of the same equation.
And when one part fails, nothing adds up anymore.

“We cannot secure our future by treating climate, nature, food, health, and economics as separate. They are one system. And when we protect nature, we protect everything else we depend on.”

09/06/2026

There’s something quietly heartbreaking happening in Cornwall right now and it’s getting harder to ignore, so please do share.

Across Newquay and likely across Cornwall, we’re watching the slow erosion of something far older and far more meaningful than most people realise: our Cornish stone-faced hedges and the unfaced earth banks. These aren’t just walls. They’re centuries‑old structures, built by hand, shaped by weather, rooted in culture, and alive with wildlife. A human-made ecosystem that's humming with life. They’re part of who we are.

Yet more and more of them are being damaged, poisoned, stripped back, or replaced entirely, often in a single morning.

Cement is being used to close in the earth and the wildlife living inside. Walls that were never meant to be sealed. Glyphosate is being sprayed into hedge faces, killing the plants whose roots hold the soil core together. Once those roots die, the soil spills out onto paths and roads, weakening the structure until the hedge eventually collapses. You can see fresh examples of this outside local primary schools. That same soil then washes into drains and lakes, causing problems far downstream.

And then there’s the timing. The cutting. The ripping out of hedge‑toppers and coppicing at the worst possible moments for wildlife. Some of this comes from not knowing better. Some of it feels like not caring enough to find out.

What makes it even sadder is what these hedges are being replaced with: fences that barely last a decade in a place once known as Towan Blystra, “the windy town.” We all know what the weather is like here. A fence will blow down sooner or later. But the Cornish hedge that stood there before? It survived storms, generations, and centuries… until it was destroyed in a single morning.

I don’t know if this is happening because new homeowners don’t understand the significance of Cornish hedges, or because some local people have forgotten their value. But it’s becoming more common and it’s painful to watch.

Cornish hedges are not obstacles. They’re not “messy.” They’re not disposable. They are living heritage and they deserve better than this slow, quiet vandalism.

09/05/2026

Tomorrow’s the day — our Planting Party at Polwhele Permaculture Gardens is nearly here, and we’d love to see you there.

We’ve got a brilliant mix of activities lined up:
• Tasty drinks and snacks from Booker
• Scones and cream from the Habitats Team
• Hands‑on plant‑pot making with paper seeds
• Strawberry, raspberry and pumpkin planting
• Slate pieces and acrylics for creative plant markers
• And of course, the native lime tree planting to celebrate Sir David Attenborough turning 100yrs at around 13:00–13:30

Bring your enthusiasm, bring a friend and let’s grow something beautiful together.
If you want to learn more about how community agro-ecology can help nature recovery, please come along

Sir David Attenborough reaches his 100-year milestone on 8th but we will be celebrating with the planting of a native lime tree on Sunday 10th.

We have chosen a native lime tree as a tribute to Sir David Attenborough because it embodies the values he’s championed throughout his life: biodiversity, ecological balance, and the connection between people and nature. 🌳

• Native species support local ecosystems. Lime trees (Tilia species) are rich in nectar and pollen, feeding bees, hoverflies, and butterflies, exactly the kind of wildlife Sir David has spent decades inspiring people to protect

• They’re long-lived and shelter-giving. A lime tree can live for centuries, providing shade, nesting sites, and food for generations of creatures. A living legacy of conservation

• Symbolically, it’s gentle and generous. The lime’s heart-shaped leaves and fragrant flowers evoke kindness and harmony, qualities that mirror Attenborough’s approach to environmental storytelling

• It’s a community-friendly tree. Easy to grow, resilient, and native to Britain. Perfect for a shared planting day that celebrates both nature and togetherness.

Better still, native lime (Tilia cordata, or small-leaved lime) has tender young leaves that can be eaten raw. They are mild, slightly sweet, and make a lovely addition to salads or sandwiches. This makes the tree not only a gift to wildlife but also a gentle reminder of our own connection to nature’s abundance.

It’s not just planting a tree; it’s planting a message of hope and continuity, something Sir David himself would likely smile at.

Treloggan Residents Association Newquay in Bloom The Bishops' C of E Learning Academy Newquay Town Council Newquay Town Council Events Drew Creek Mayor of Newquay

04/05/2026

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1497899331906748

02/05/2026

Isn't it amazing what you can find, just a stone's throw from your own doorstep? Nudibranch sea slug (Holmes, K. 2026), Spit beach Par/ St Austell.

02/05/2026

Sir David Attenborough reaches his 100-year milestone on 8th but we will be celebrating with the planting of a native lime tree on Sunday 10th.

We have chosen a native lime tree as a tribute to Sir David Attenborough because it embodies the values he’s championed throughout his life: biodiversity, ecological balance, and the connection between people and nature. 🌳

• Native species support local ecosystems. Lime trees (Tilia species) are rich in nectar and pollen, feeding bees, hoverflies, and butterflies, exactly the kind of wildlife Sir David has spent decades inspiring people to protect

• They’re long-lived and shelter-giving. A lime tree can live for centuries, providing shade, nesting sites, and food for generations of creatures. A living legacy of conservation

• Symbolically, it’s gentle and generous. The lime’s heart-shaped leaves and fragrant flowers evoke kindness and harmony, qualities that mirror Attenborough’s approach to environmental storytelling

• It’s a community-friendly tree. Easy to grow, resilient, and native to Britain. Perfect for a shared planting day that celebrates both nature and togetherness.

Better still, native lime (Tilia cordata, or small-leaved lime) has tender young leaves that can be eaten raw. They are mild, slightly sweet, and make a lovely addition to salads or sandwiches. This makes the tree not only a gift to wildlife but also a gentle reminder of our own connection to nature’s abundance.

It’s not just planting a tree; it’s planting a message of hope and continuity, something Sir David himself would likely smile at.

Treloggan Residents Association Newquay in Bloom The Bishops' C of E Learning Academy Newquay Town Council Newquay Town Council Events Drew Creek Mayor of Newquay

04/04/2026

🌿 Community Notice – Broken Glass at Polwhele Permaculture Gardens
We wanted to make everyone aware of an issue that has caused harm at the gardens this week.
A visitor’s dog sadly cut its paws on broken glass at the bottom of the site. When we investigated, we found a significant amount of smashed glass embedded in the grass, which is extremely difficult to fully remove.
We now believe that someone has been bringing wine bottles from home and stuffing the bins full of them instead of recycling at home. These bottles are then being fished out by someone else and smashed around the gardens.
For the time being, please keep dogs close and avoid letting them wander off the paths, as we continue working to make the area safe again.
Our bins have very limited capacity and are not suitable for large amounts of glass. There is also no space for litter or dog waste, so we kindly ask everyone to take these home with them.
Thank you to everyone who helps care for this shared community space. Your support genuinely keeps the gardens safe and welcoming for all.

Treloggan Residents Association