A MEIRIONNYDD health centre is creating a buzz about town, thanks to its bee-friendly garden.

Tywyn Health Centre’s Garden of Hope has been awarded ‘Bee-Friendly’ status by the Welsh Government.

The health centre, a team of dedicated volunteers and local businesses have worked hard to create the beautiful garden and a spokesperson said the centre was “proud to announce” the bee-friendly accolade.

“We’re providing vital food and shelter for bees and other pollinators and we hope that the garden provides a little wellbeing boost to our local community as well,” the spokesperson said.

Research and development officer Lisa Gardner added: “The practice has always been keen to support the wellbeing of the community and the environment we live and work in.

“The aim of the project as to create a symbol of community spirit during the pandemic. The idea of a bee-friendly garden, providing much-needed shelter and habitat for pollinators, came about as part of our new initiative to become greener practice.

“We contacted Natur Gwynedd for advice and planned the garden in line with Welsh Government’s bee-friendly scheme standards. We’ve included nectar-rich native wildflowers, evergreen plants for winter shelter and we’ll be ensuring there is a year round supply of nectar-rich flowers for bees.”

The centre would like to thank everyone who helped to create the garden.

Lisa added: “I approached local landscaper Glyn Jones of Dyfi Landscaping to remove the gravel and put the topsoil down for us.

“Glyn not only agreed to do this work for free, but he also sourced supplies from Huws Gray and the use of a digger from Travis Perkins. He even came up with the name ‘The Garden of Hope’.

“He explained that all of the local businesses involved wanted to donate their goods or services as a thank you to the practice and the NHS as a whole for their work throughout the Covid pandemic. When it came to planting, Pendre garden centre very kindly donated several crates of plants and Genesis printed the sign I designed for the garden free of charge.

“We were thrilled to be awarded bee-friendly status. We have been so overwhelmed by the support we have received from local businesses so we’d like to say a big thank you to them and it wouldn’t be right if I left out all the volunteers who helped to plant the flowerbed, donate seeds or plants and continue to help by watering it throughout the hot summer days.

“We hope the garden will be enjoyed by generations to come and plan to extend the planting to other areas of the carpark over the coming years.”