With the generous support of the Community Fund
Come along and visit the garden from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. We can update you on progress, get your ideas for our first growing year and have a cup of tea (bring your own mug, if you can).
From 11am-3pm we will be hosting an Open Day at the community garden site within the field (Lower Botanic), which is the perfect opportunity for all the family to come along and enjoy face painting, tree giveaways, street art, bird-box building, and a willow workshop! Do pop-in if you are passing by, it would be great to meet you and exchange the wonderful plans we have for the garden and the wider community.
The wildflower beds are in need of a little TLC, join us in the field at Lower Botanic Gardens (beside the PEC carpark) on Saturday for some light raking and weeding :-)
To assist with a baseline ecological survey of the site, as well as getting the community together to learn and have fun, FOF held its first Bioblitz in the field at Lower Botanic Gardens. Over 100 observations were made by the 37 participants, and we all had such an amazing day! See our News section for more info!
Check out our project on iNaturalist to see all the different species we identified!
Link: Botanic Meadows BioBlitz · iNaturalist
The iNaturalist app:
Creating more habitats for local wildlife, through building bird and bat boxes and bug hotels. The kits were kindly donated to us by Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful (KNIB), and we put them together thanks to the expertise of Joe Dillon and Valter Mira. Special thanks also to Alan Wardle and the team at Belfast City Council for their support!
With the help of The Conservation Volunteers (TCV), Kate Nicholl and team from the Alliance Party, QUB and volunteers from the local community, we shifted 20 tonnes of green waste, peat-free compost to create heaps for sowing wildflowers along the main path in the field. We cannot wait to see how these bloom in spring, giving our local pollinators a much-needed boost!