Free wildflower seeds Papaver rhoeas, common poppy, were handed out to students and staff yesterday in an attempt to increase indigenous biodiversity in Worcester.
Students Owen Jackson first year Plant Science and Keenan Staple first year Geography worked hard on Saturday morning making sure the seeds and labels were ready for the stall first thing Monday morning.
Using items collected from Worcester Resource Exchange they skilfully filled small bottles and added planting instruction and information stickers to the small glass receptacles. Owen was especially concerned to get everything completed in good time, being a rugby fan he was keen to finish in time for the 6 nations match later in the afternoon.
Owen explained, ‘I’m really enjoying the preparations for Go Green Week which is something new and exciting for me, but I’ve grown up with rugby and I’d like to see the match’.
Both Keenan and Owen are discovering the sustainability elective course stimulating and are finding the assessed assignment project managing, preparing and then evaluating the impacts of Go Green Week really fun and different.
Keenan explains ‘This module is very different from my other modules. We are working in teams with students studying different courses. This was hard at first as I didn’t know anyone else in my group but we’ve soon settled in. It was quite daunting when it was first explained to us we would be leading such a high profile activity on campus. The tutors have been really supportive’.
Owen added:
‘Yes it was scary at first but now we really understand what we’ve got to do and are finding it fun and different. I’m learning such a lot about how we can make a difference. The data we are gathering about the poppy seeds will be useful. We are planning to map this to show where the seeds have been planted. We have asked anyone who’s taken the free seeds to tell us. Most are going in gardens but some are going into pots or window boxes.’
Helping out on the stall was Ross Parker, also a geography student. People have been very interested in why we have been giving out the seeds and having the Friends of the Earth Bee stall next door has helped; it’s been good to explain about pollination and the impact on agriculture if we don’t help provide food for bees. Poppies are their favourite flowers. It helped me having Owen on hand to explain more about plants as he studies plant science.
The students have been asked to keep some of the seeds for the nursery. Manager Hazel Rutherford would like to plant poppies in the nursery grounds and also make these available to the parents. The children in the nursery are taking part in Go Green Week doing various events.
The wild flower (but not native) seeds that were sown by the City Council on the strip of ground between the Racecourse and Croft Road car park won much praise. The flowers looked lovely for many weeks in the spring/summer and should self seed and grow again soon. Students and staff often walk the route as it links the St Johns campuses with City campus and The Hive really enjoyed the ‘meadow’.
This was a simple, cheap and very affective planting scheme requiring no maintenance during the growing season. When resources are stretched this is something managers are always on the look out for.
I too am keen to see the sites the poppy seeds have gone to and if i can spot the pretty red flowers later in the year around Worcester and perhaps even further afield.
I’m looking forwards to seeing the map of where the seeds will be distributed!
Likewise! I believe someone took some that didn’t live locally, but said they were going to do some guerrilla gardening at the park nearby.