Seed sowing extravaganza - Saturday 15 October

With winter on the way, it's time to get everything ready for a spectacular spring in 2012. So come down to the meadow on Saturday October 15 between 12pm and 4.30pm and help sow our next batch of wildflower seeds.

This will be our last gardening day before a 5 month break over winter, and this year will be slightly different than our other seed-sowing days in two important ways.

First, it'll be MUCH easier than other years, because instead of sowing annuals (plants that only live for one summer), we'll be sowing a meadow mix that includes grass and perennials (plants that come back year after year). So we'll have hardly any weeding and digging to do. Phew!

Second, the amazing Sue from Friends of Homerton Station will be leading the day. Sue's a passionate gardener and wildflower expert, so she'll be on hand to answer all your questions and make sure the meadow's better than ever in 2012.


See you there!

Bluebell planting and willow weaving workshop - Sunday 25 September

This weekend's going to be fantastic - with not one but two great events happening on the meadow. So come on down on Sunday 25 September from 12pm-4pm and get stuck in!

Bluebell Planting

Artist Penny Sabudin will be helping bring the endangered British Bluebell back from the brink by leading a planting session in the meadow. So next spring we'll have the makings of our very own bluebell wood! Come along, learn how to plant these rare beauties and help save them from extinction.

Willow weaving workshop

Penny will be joined by fellow artist Elsa Godfrey, who's weaving a giant ball made from willow stems. (You might know Elsa's work already - she made the huge woven ball in Clissold Park). Everyone's welcome to add a stem to Elsa's newest project, and learning about willow weaving along the way. It's a great activity for kids, and a thanks to the flyover, we'll be able to weave rain or shine.

See you there!

I hope you like daffodils....

Because the meadow now has hundreds of them! After a great effort from the dedicated meadow volunteers, we added planted three big bags of bulbs in under the grass by the path, so next year we should have hundreds of daffodils to brighten up the spring.

We started by getting used to our shiny new tools, courtesy of our Awards for All grant (thanks Big Lottery!)


Then The Floating Cinema paid us a visit, and everyone got involved with a bit of planting.

Then it was bulbs away for the rest of the afternoon!



A very special thanks to Danny, Chloe and Russell for their hard work and all-round amazingness during the day.

Daffodil day - Saturday 17 September

Autumn is in the air, which means now's the perfect time to fill up the meadow with spring bulbs. So on Saturday 17 September, we'll be holding an all-ages, drop-in bulb planting session from 12pm - 4pm as part of the Hackney Wick Festival.

As always, you can come whenever, and plant as many or as few bulbs as you like. But unlike other bulb-planting days, this year we'll have a bunch of these to help out (thanks Big Lottery Fund!). Which, I'm reliably informed, makes planting super easy and really satisfying.

As a reminder of how AMAZING the bulbs we planted last year looked when they flowered in spring. 2012 will be even better!

So long summer

It's been great!