Win a lawncare wildflower bundle and tin of seeds
MORE and more we're being encouraged to grow native wildflowers in our garden.
Not only are they great for pollinators - they improve soil health and encourage biodiversity - a wider ranger of beneficial insects and birds.
3
3
One idea is to leave a part of your lawn to grow wild.
But Johnson's seeds have gone one better with a new seed and wildflower mix.
They're offering TEN Sun Gardening readers a Wildflower lawncare bundle worth £25 each.
The Lawn Seed combines slow growing grasses with UK native mowable flowers - a pollinators dream - plus there's a tin of Celebration Wildflower s.
To win fill in the form below.
Or write to Sun Wildflower Lawn Competition, PO Box 3190, Colchester, Essex, CO2 8GP.
Include your name, age, email or phone. UK residents 18+ only. Entries close 11.59pm. July 5, 2025.
T&Cs apply.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
29 minutes ago
- BBC News
Birmingham couple go from retail jobs to fostering in their 30s
Nine years ago, Mike and Andy were working jobs in retail which left them in a "cycle of nothingness".The couple, from Birmingham, wanted to experience family life. They decided to start fostering were 30 and 33 - significantly younger than the UK fostering average of and Mike now foster full-time and have been sharing the rewards and challenges of their role. They are parents to a teenage girl and boy from different families - two of the nearly 12,000 children in care in the West Midlands as of January 2024. Mike said they had helped the children form a strong sibling bond."The dynamic between the two of them is brilliant," he said."They're just like siblings – they'll argue, call each other names, and then, the next minute, they're holding hands around the shopping centre." Andy and Mike believe their role is to help foster children overcome "unimaginable circumstances".Before she moved in, their foster daughter had seven homes in 12 has now been with Andy and Mike for five years, and will stay until she is at least 18. She was a bridesmaid at their said fostering without any preconceived parenting ideas had made the experience enjoyable."Some parents can find it challenging because foster children have had very different early experiences to their own children, and they have to learn to navigate trauma and complex emotions," he said. 'They bring joy to our lives' The couple said they believed there were myths over fostering which deterred young people from inquiring about it."Fostering is a way of life, and we see these children as our own, but it's important other people know that you are financially supported when you foster," said Andy."We do a lot of training, learning, and admin while caring for the children around the clock. "You can also still go to work and foster at the same time, and you can foster if you happen to rent your home."Mike added: "We see the admin side of things, like the training and daily logs as work, but the rest of the time, they're just our children."Sometimes it's really hard, but you don't give up on your own children."They're part of our family and our life now, they bring so much joy and energy to our lives." Children in care by area Birmingham and Black Country: 4,808Coventry: 724Herefordshire: 412Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin: 1,109Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent: 2,491Warwickshire: 778Wolverhampton: 501Worcestershire: 1,000 Follow BBC Birmingham on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
BBC News
39 minutes ago
- BBC News
Big Venture Centre stepping in where 'everyone is struggling'
Jane Platt's bright pink polo shirt marks her out as a volunteer at the Big Venture community shop provides discounted items and other help to people living in some of the most deprived areas of like Bushbury, Heath Town and Low Hill, where Ms Platt believes "everyone is struggling", including herself. The local council insists it is there for those who need support, but some living in the areas say they feel forgotten. "My baby won't play out in the streets," explained Ms Platt, who lives near the Scotlands Estate. The 45-year-old has been volunteering at the centre for years and said it helped her gain skills and look after her own mental health. But she claimed it was also one of the only places she felt safe in the area. "You can't look at people when you [are out]," Ms Platt said. "I try and look the opposite way because you just don't know what they're going to say." Tracey Walters, a resident being supported by the Big Venture Centre, was born in the area. The 61-year-old said she liked living there but felt it had been "forgotten" demanded more activities for younger children on the estate, and was also concerned about rubbish. "I don't think Wolverhampton Council care about this area," she said. The council said there was more than £121,000 in funding for children in the Scotlands during the school holidays, adding it received regular litter picks and sweeps. The local authority also insisted 112 jobs involving roads and street lighting had been carried out. But another centre user, who asked not to be named, said it looked "scruffy". The woman, who has lived in the area all her life, said drugs and other forms of anti-social behaviour were a big problem, often because young people did not have anything to do."It used be nice area at one time but there's nothing left," she claimed. "It's just empty houses that get smashed up. You find needles on the floor [and] nobody cares." Despite the issues, volunteer director David Chadwick insisted the Scotlands was a place where "everybody will help everybody". "Without us a lot of families would suffer and that's why we're here," he said. City of Wolverhampton Council said it was working with police and other organisations to make sure the area was safe and nobody was "left behind". "The council has awarded millions of pounds in regeneration grants in the area and created The Big Venture centre by a community asset transfer," a spokesperson said. "We hold regular community resident meeting where people can talk directly to the council." Follow BBC Wolverhampton & Black Country on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Student beekeeper finds 'bee paradise' in the heart of Oxford
A university student says he has found a "bee paradise" in the heart of Oxford after pursuing his Maxen, 23, from St Albans in Hertfordshire, splits his time between studying cancer science at the University of Oxford and taking care of tens of thousands of bees in two hives at the Great Meadow, owned by Merton took up the unusual hobby earlier this year after spending a couple of years researching beekeeping and "going down a rabbit hole" of watching YouTube videos about Maxen had initially posted on neighbourhood app Nextdoor, asking the Oxfordshire community to put his beehive "in someone's back garden" and was "overwhelmed" with replies. "Sometimes there'd be a really nice story involved - there are a lot of people whose parents had kept bees when they were a child and they now want to reconnect with beekeeping," he explains."[Others] were maybe too old to bee keep themselves but really wanted to get involved."But he changed his mind over potential stings and him visiting someone else's space during "unsociable times".Instead, he reached out to about 20 university colleges and Merton College offered "a beautiful wildflower meadow here that they'd happily house my bees"."Now, I'm in a bee paradise right in the heart of Oxford." 'Bees are like pets' He first became interested in having his own bees about two years ago. "I was supposedly revising for exams, but then I accidentally went on YouTube and ended up going down a three-hour rabbit hole," he says."I was watching Just Alex and he's quite a young guy as well, so I thought 'if he's able to do beekeeping, there's no reason I should kind of wait till I'm older'."Mr Maxen says beekeepers "have a tendency to start thinking of the bees as their pets". "There are somewhere between 10,000 and 60,000 of them... but maybe you could view one hive as one big pet," he explains, comparing it to the emotional support some might get from a dog. Mr Maxen says his friends were initially "understandably surprised" by his hobby."But they've all got super into it and I've had lots of friends coming down to the hives to get involved."He even started naming the queen bees after them, such as Bee-ola after his girlfriend Ceola and Badeline after his friend Maxen says his "dream" is to harvest between 50 to 100 jars of honey, twice a year in spring and autumn."That way I'd be able to give some away for free to my friends and family which is the most important thing for me," he says."But also, it would be very cool to get my own honey to one of these garden markets or markets that we have in Oxford, and be able to sell them to the public as well." You can follow BBC Oxfordshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
