This Must Be Our Place Workbook 4 - Green Interventions in Our Place

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THIS MUS T BE OUR PLACE

GReEN IntErVEnTIoNS iN OUR PlACE

There is a glossary at the end of the introductory booklet filled with some words that might be new to you.

A Garden is a Living Monument Gardening, planting food and wildflowers is a great way to reconnect us with our place, community, the seasons and the slow passing of time. Nurturing plants and gardens can make us feel grounded and helps us to reconnect with a place. You can find plant life everywhere in your place, whether you are in a town or city there are always cracks from which plants can grow and thrive. The Butterfly Bush, or Buddleia, can be found almost everywhere in the urban environment, and thrives in harsh environments, such as polluted urban settings. Buddleia is also resistant to insects, drought, and stress and are fantastic pollinators. Learning more about the plants in your place, their names, origins and symbolism, helps to connect us to the history of that place and its people.

ed d e e N ogy l o n h c No Te

Grow a WildFloWer GArden Locate some areas of green space around your place, or look back at the maps you have made in previous activities, think about where these places are and the non-human life; the plants and creatures that we share them with. Could you introduce some new life to the place by planting local wildflower seeds and establishing a wildflower garden in your area?

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Seed Bomb Recipe You will need Wildflower seed mix (find out more about what native wildflowers to choose from for your site at here*) Compost Flour Water Bowl

how to 1. Empty your seeds into a bowl 2. Add compost (3 times as much as there is seeds) 3. Add flour (same amount as seeds) 4. Add water until you have a thick gloopy texture 5. Roll seed balls in hands and create ball shapes or anything that makes throwing easy!

6. Leave seed balls to dry for at least 24 hours 7. You are now ready to toss, roll, scatter and throw your seed gifts to the birds and the bees!

8. Revisit and watch your garden develop and grow over time.

*www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woodsand-wildlife/plants/wild-flowers/

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Make a green monument Create a temporary ‘Green Monument’ to celebrate something or someone that is living in your place. This could be a person, animal, plant or other living thing. You can create your green monument in a group or individually.

You can draw or write about your imagined Green Monument. Think about its shape, size, colour and the materials you could use to make it. You could also make a small scale model of your monument using paper or card.

OR...

YOUR OWN D.I.Y PLANTER You could create your own DIY planter Green Monument with instructions from Plant Grow Share on How To Make a Recycled Planter here; (Full link at end of the document for printed version)

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Who or what is your Green Monument celebrating? What would you plant as part of your monument that could connect the living thing (human or non human!) to this place?

Where would you put your monument? Give your monument a name and create a list of plants you could include that celebrate your chosen living person, animal, plant or other living thing.

For example; ‘Our Daily Bread’: A Green Monument for Ahmed.

It will celebrate my local shop keeper and his family who have run the shop across the road from me for over 20 years. This monument will be made from an old pallet collected from the shop deliveries. We will plant wheat in our green monument to celebrate all the loaves we’ve brought from him over the years. We will paint it red as that’s his favourite colour. It will have small paintings of some of the essential items he sells on it. We will present it to him outside the shop (with his permission of course!).

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Create an Imagined Wild Food Menu Pick a green space in your place. How many different kinds of plants can you identify? Can you collect them for examination? Can you draw them and catalogue them? Do you know which ones are edible? In groups make an imagined menu of wild food from plants you can find in your place.

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Dandelions, dock leaves, nettles, wild garlic, cleavers (AKA sticky willies), elderflower and daisies could all feature in your imagined menu. You can find out more about edible wild plants and foods here. You could include street or places names or memories from the place in your menu to make it more personal to you. Make a menu card detailing your imagined meal and share with others in your group.