Garden

• Most adults in later life experience some form of ill health, such as arthritis, cognitive impairment, heart problems or issues with hearing and vision.
• The problem is that the UK housing stock is nowhere near ready to cater to this need.
• And yet, there were more than 20,000 people on English local authority waiting lists for wheelchair and accessible homes.

The impact of poor housing

• And size matters: the smaller the house, the more difficult it is for those people with disabilities to move around and live fulfilled lives.
• As journalists Melissa York and Georgia Lambert put it in 2023:
  Poor quality housing costs the NHS £1.4 billion a year, yet the relationship between housing and health is rarely acknowledged.
• Poor quality housing costs the NHS £1.4 billion a year, yet the relationship between housing and health is rarely acknowledged.
• Poor housing is routinely cited as a major cause.

Why we need supportive housing design

• Built environment professionals, including architects, stress the importance of reimagining housing design by establishing Part M Clause 2 (category 2) of the Building Regulations as the baseline to better support healthy ageing.
• A 90-year-old great-grandmother can live independently if her home features wide doorways, no-step entrances and a walk-in shower with grab bars.

• The John Morden Centre in Blackheath, London, illustrates how thoughtful design can support older residents’ quality of life.
• Of course, ideas need to be put into practice for them to really change the way people live.
• In construction terms, this means that supportive design needs to be enshrined in building regulations and the wider housing policy.
• Making such design regulations compulsory would see the housing industry effectively contribute to reducing the burden on the NHS and our social care system.
• Architects talk about resilient housing to describe homes that are built for the long-term with sustainable healthy ageing in mind.

Faye Sedgewick receives funding from Innovate UK and is a member of the Architects Registration Board. Paul Jones receives funding from Innovate UK, Research England, AHRC

• The second annual Bug of the Year contest has been won by the red admiral butterfly.
• It received a total of 2,275 votes from the nearly 17,000 votes cast by New Zealanders at home and abroad.
• One of our most spectacular butterflies, the red admiral inherits the crown from last year’s inaugural winner, the native bee, or ngaro huruhuru (Leioproctus fulvescens).

Moths and butterflies aren’t so different

• Read more:
  Unveiling the enigmatic world of moths: from ancient pollinators to whistling wonders

  Aotearoa has over 2,000 species of lepidoptera – butterflies and moths – and roughly 90% of these are endemic.

• You might be surprised to know there are no clear differences between what are commonly called butterflies and those called moths.
• Because they feed from floral nectar sources and transfer pollen in the process, moths and butterflies are important pollinators.

Gardens as butterfly habitats

• And resilient and diverse pollinator populations benefit both natural and created ecosystems like gardens.
• Read more:
  How butterflies conquered the world: a new 'family tree' traces their 100-million-year journey across the globe

  The Moths and Butterflies of New Zealand Trust conducts an online course on how to assess, create and maintain butterfly habitats.

• Lepidoptera differ from some other invertebrates in that females prefer to (or exclusively) lay their eggs on specific host plants.
• It is well known that monarch butterfly caterpillars need to feed on milkweed (swan plant).

Pollinator protection

• Besides planting with butterflies and moths in mind, there are many other actions you can take in the garden to help make it suitable for thriving pollinator populations.
• Read more:
  Next time you see a butterfly, treasure the memory: scientists raise alarm on these 26 species

  Introduced predators also threaten our unique bugs.

• This will include the best times to spot native and introduced bugs, and other ways to promote invertebrate conservation and biodiversity.

Janice Lord is a member of the Entomological Society of New Zealand. Connal McLean is a volunteer with The Moths and Butterflies of New Zealand Trust.

• The gown inspired by Disney's Ursula features a mermaid silhouette adorned with tonal sparkle beadwork on the bodice.
• The 2024 Disney Fairy Tale Weddings collection also includes gowns inspired by Disney Princess characters – Ariel, Aurora, Belle, Cinderella, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Rapunzel, Snow White and Tiana.
• The newest of these locations is World Celebration Gardens, which is in the heart of EPCOT at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida.
• It will round out the trio of carriages that includes the Cinderella Coach at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida and the Disney Fairy Tale Carriage at Disneyland Paris.

• But I started noticing that these plants, sourced online, often arrived in the post with a passport.
• Peatlands, such as bogs and fens, store more carbon than all of the world’s forests combined.
• So why on earth is peat being ripped from these vital ecosystems and stuffed inside plant pots?

From sink to source

• Instead of acting as a carbon sink, it has become one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK’s land use sector.
• Most of the peat excavated, bagged up and sold in the UK is used as a growing medium for plants.
• So the continued decimation of the UK’s peatlands could remain hidden in supply chains long after we stop spreading peat on our gardens.

Hide and seek peat

• For consumers, it’s almost impossible to identify products that contain peat or use peat in their production.
• The Hidden Peat campaign asks consumers to call for clear labelling that would enable shoppers to more easily identify peat-containing products.
• You can write to your MP to support a ban on peat extraction and, crucially, the sale of peat and peat-containing products in the UK.

Pilots and progress

• This campaign calls for further acceleration of peatland restoration across the UK.
• I spend a lot of time taking samples, monitoring the progress, feeding results back to the land managers.
• We heavily invest in restoring peatlands, yet fail to ban its extraction – the one action that would have the most dramatic impact.

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Casey Bryce works with the Somerset Wildlife Trust to monitor peat restoration, funded by the University of Bristol department for alumni relations.