The Chelsea Fringe Festival on Sunday 19 May, saw the launch of the Meadow Line where River of Flowers transported tubular meadows of wildflowers to ten stations on the London Tube. Two of the tube stations have donated their wildflowers to community organisations close by.
About us: how we are growing!
The 'river' in River of Flowers is an evocative way of describing the planting of urban meadows in 'rivers' or 'trails' of floral forage for bees, butterflies and other insect pollnators. It describes the flight path of the pollinators as much as it does the flow of wildflowers.
River of Flowers is a landscape initiative engaging the whole urban community in thinking and doing more about nature. Urban development and agriculture are two processes that have stripped the land of its indigenous wild plants. Our aim is to incorporate wild plants in both of these to bring nature into the city.
An urban meadow can be of any size ranging from a diverse collection of native wildflowers in a space as small as a window box to a field full of magnificent meadow flowers. Wildlflowers can be grown in any viable urban space, in balconies and bus stops, community gardens and churchyards, pavements and parks, orchards and overpasses, roofs and roundabouts!
Let us know about the imaginative and inspiring ways that you are growing wildflowers and edibles in the city.
A bee does not distinguish between wildflowers or cultivated edibles, between public or private land, and between wildflower gardens or what has sprung up naturally. A bee has no borders or boundaries. Wherever a wildflower grows and a bee or butterfly can forage, there is the River of Flowers.
River of Flowers has gone Glocal in 2013 - travelling to cities around the globe but still local at heart!