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Grownotts

@grownotts

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Designers, creators & nurturers of impactful green-spaces
🌼 Community Interest Company
🌼 Design | Build | Nurture

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Who are we? by @grownotts

What do we do? by @grownotts

Why do we do it? by @grownotts

EXPLORING OUR SPACES PT.3 | Percy Street, Basford 🌿

Continuing our little series exploring some of the spaces we design, build and nurture, this time we’ve got Percy Street over in Basford 💚

Like Wollaton, this project centred around transforming a fairly hard roadside space into something greener, vibrant and with a lil more magic.

The planting here was designed with climate resilience and long-term sustainability in mind, combining perennial-style meadow planting with drought tolerant species and colourful herbaceous planting.

Since installation we’ve continued tinkering, adjusting and refining bits of the space over time, particularly around the soft landscaping edges where traffic was causing a bit of damage. Small changes, but the sort of stuff that really helps public planting survive and keep on being beautiful.

One of our favourite parts of this project was planting sections of the scheme alongside school children from directly opposite the site 🌱

Getting young people involved in shaping the spaces around them is always special and hopefully helps create a stronger connection to nature and place as they grow up.

Projects like this are a good reminder that even relatively small public spaces can be transformative when they’re properly cared for and thoughtfully planted.

More colour, more pollinators, more joy.

Happy days.
x by @grownotts

EXPLORING OUR SPACES PT.2 | Trent Basin 🌿

For nearly 3 years now we’ve been caring for and nurturing the green spaces across Trent Basin, developed by @iglooregeneration & @blueprintregeneration 💚

Set alongside the River Trent and next to the new footbridge connecting Lady Bay, this is a space used by residents, walkers, cyclists, runners, commuters and folk just out having a lil wander (and plenty of forest fans soon).

Our role here has never really been about quick fixes or overly pristine landscaping, more about long-term care, ecological management and helping the spaces slowly settle into themselves over time.

One of the main features here is a large wildflower meadow, which we’ve been slowly tinkering with year after year. Adjusting cuts, experimenting with management approaches, observing what thrives, what struggles and how the space responds season to season.

We absolutely love working this way. Letting spaces teach you things over time rather than trying to force them into being something they’re not.

The meadow now bursts with colour and movement through the warmer months and supports a whole range of pollinators and wildlife, whilst softening what is otherwise a super urban setting.

There’s a communal garden space enjoyed by residents, as well as wider planting throughout the development including footpaths, flower beds, tree pits and shared green spaces that help tie the whole site together.

We think grounds maintenance can, and should, be more than just keeping things tidy n all that.

With the right approach, these spaces can support biodiversity, improve wellbeing, build connection to nature and create places people genuinely enjoy spending time in.

We’ve absolutely loved watching this space evolve over the last few years and feel very lucky to continue caring for it.

Happy days.
x by @grownotts

EXPLORING OUR SPACES PT.1 | Lambourne Drive, Wollaton 🌿

After the overwhelming response to some of the bits we shared last week, we thought we’d start diving a little deeper into some of the spaces we’ve designed, built, planted and continue to nurture. So first up, we’ve got Lambourne Drive in Wollaton. 💚

We were brought into this project as part of the wider creation of a transport and mobility hub and, working closely alongside Nottingham City Council, we’re genuinely chuffed with the impact this space has had already.

This site is centred around two key planting themes:

FLOWER MEADOWS
Across the site we’ve created perennial-style meadow planting with 30+ species, transforming what would previously have been standard grass verges into spaces full of movement, colour, texture and life.
The idea was simple, create something beautiful and biodiverse that people encounter in their everyday lives. Whether you’re walking past, cycling through, waiting at the crossing or driving by, we wanted the space to feel joyful, alive and changing throughout the seasons.

The species mix here was carefully selected to be: • drought tolerant
• long flowering
• pollinator friendly
• climate resilient
• visually dynamic across the year

Maintenance is intentionally simple too. The meadow receives an annual cut and clear, alongside the occasional tidy up where things spill onto paths or roads. Beyond that, nature mostly takes the lead.

SAND + GRAVEL PLANTING
The second element of the scheme centres around two steel planters filled with herbaceous perennials and ornamental grasses. Here we’ve used a sand and gravel planting approach to create a vibrant and Resilient planting palette with an incredibly long season of interest.
Importantly, once established, this planting receives no additional watering whatsoever, and won’t moving forward.
Designing public planting with this in mind is massively important. Often public spaces don’t have easy access to water we’d rather spend time

(Continued in Comments) by @grownotts

OUR NEW SPACE IS POPPING REET OFF 🌼 🌸 🌻

Back in June we had the pleasure of working alongside the ever wonderful @greenhustlefest, @thesarahmanton and @theniceplace247, with a dream of whipping up another ecologically vibrant and community driven greenspace in Notts.

Well, we did that, a tonne of folk came down from far and wide (couldn't of done it without you, thankyaaaaa) and we had a merry ode time transforming a block of beds on Sussex St that had been lacking the love they deserved.

And lemme tell ya, it is well and truly blooooomin.

This is everything we love about what we do, bringing folks together, creating vibrant spaces, bringing about meaningful change to our environment and showing that we (yes us every day folk without lab coats or big wallets) can have such a massive impact with what we do.

It don't always have to be complicated, a few people, a few nice ideas, a drive to bring about change in Notts, chuck a few plants in the ground and happy days.

We loved designing the planting scheme for this one, we used exclusively climate resilient / drought tolerant plants that look wicked, make insects happy and will knock about for years to come even if the weather keeps changing thick and fast.

We also got to design a new style of solitary bee post too.

If you've got a lil forgotten corner, a want for a vibrant, ecological and resilient garden, a patch you're not sure what to do with or a space you want more people to engage with, well ya know who to call.

Absolutely masssssive thankyou to all who came down and supported along the way, to @you_dig_gardens for supporting with providing a space and to Richard Barlow from Nottingham Green Partnership for sponsoring the transformation.

💚 by @grownotts

Our gardens just got a lil bit more magical 💚

Last week our bestest friend @kynobio came and created this piece of pure mural wonderfullness and we can't quite get our heads round how bloody beautiful it is.

Gardening aint just for gardeners and gardens aren't just for plants n stuff. They're places to inspire, create, share and of course grow, together.

And when this all comes together, thats when things like this get to happen.

Getting to share the things you love in the places you call home and showing that they really are ours (the bits outside our gaffs) we think is well important, and it's wicked every time we move closer and closer to that in lil ode sneinton.

The day @_bethwise came through with her students and the cats, we got no end of compliments, people commenting on the space and noticing all the other things whilst stopping to admire em.

So it all goes to show that like we said, gardens aint just for gardeners, and any chance you get to let people do what they're inspired too, then ateast we believe, that is when the magic happens.

If you love @kynobio's work as much as we do, he's currently selling a bunch of his original art before a big trip away, and is available for mural commissions tooo so please do av a butchers.

💚 by @grownotts

WE'VE BEEN WHIPPING UP HABITATS 🐝

For the past couple of years we've been designing / supplying / installing solitary bee habitats (in various forms), and with another 4 going out this week we'd thought we'd have a shout about it.

These habitats offer important nesting site for various precious Solitary Bee species (and other insects), and atleast we think they look bloody beautiful.

As soon as we slot em in it feels like theyve always been there, we love the structure / variety they provide especially over winter, and we've seen them used so so much now across the city which makes us very very happy.

Solitary Bees don't live in hives, each female makes her own nest, often in small holes in wood, soil or stems. They're gentle, hardworking pollinators that play a vital role in supporting biodiversity and pollination.

In picture 7 you can see from the type of nesting material, that it's likely to be a leaf cutter bee, of which there are 7 species in the UK. Leaf cutter bees can use upto 40 species of leaf within just one nesting cell, and is a common species for us to be able to support with human made habitats.

If you've got a garden, public space, community space where you want to heighten it's ecological impact, and bring a bit of visual joy then give us a shouttt.

💚 by @grownotts

WE DID IT AGAIN 🌼 🌻 🐝

Sneinton is now a lil more loved.

Firstly WOW, we were not expecting such an amazing turnout on Saturday, we were well and truly blown away by how things panned out. We for one are absolutely full of beans now to keep building a greener sneinton. We left Saturday feeling inspired connected and assured that as a community we can achieve bloody anything. What a lovely lovely day.

We want to say a MASSIVE thankyou to everyone who said elo, lent a hand and supported on the day, the whole project was and is rooted in community and we literally couldn't of done anything without everyone. The scenes when we had 20/30 folks all lined up planting filled our lil hearts right to the top.

Amongst us, and everyone we spoke to there was a big appetite to crack on, and we intend to do just that!

We want to say a big big big big big thnx to all those who helped us deliver our loveliest day eva

@sneinton.swag for coming through with the whole crew, getting stuck in a supporting with litter picking

@bethwise for the screen printing workshops @heatherhodkinson for the designs

@rights4flies for painting a million faces and bringing there luvly luvly smiles

@lydiapage and co for the amazing amazing rewilding streets activities

@ludditefolksession for blessing us with there sounds all day

@young wilders for whipping up mega habitats

@drljbees for sharing there wonderful insect knowledge

And of course the crew aaron belcher, andy callow, heather and emma for making it all happen.

We could not do it without yas.

And another big up for each and everyone person who came through, hope you all left feelings as full as we did.

❤️ by @grownotts

The blower made the news folks.

Did they misquote us a lil? Yep.

Did they replace the word folks with blokes by accident? Yep.

Do we still find it pretty cool and funny that us wearing masks and firing wildflowers here there and everywhere with a leaf blower (and a sling shot which didnt make the cut) has a news article about it? Yep.

Worked a treat too.

Can't wait for Autumn where we can go find some more mounds of rubble to play with.

Heard a rumour we might get full flower themed costumes for round 2.

If anyone needs some leaf blowing services this year, then give someone else a call as we've drilled a massive hole in ours, oops.

Happy days.

X by @grownotts

Had some fun. Made a thing. Put a mask on. Spread some seeds. Flowers growing. Happy days.

<3 by @grownotts