Sunday 22 August 2010



Hello!! Its been over a month since my last post... so much has happened in Stirchley during this time! The first community market attracted national as well as local media coverage; the houses in Hazelwell Lane have had additional high security metal panels added (making it ultra difficult to access their gardens to check out any more interesting garden plants...), and the Thought Exchange has evolved, ever so slightly... opening up the scope of the project to supporting sustainable natural habitats and local wildlife. Still plant related, but encompassing all those bugs and creatures that thrive on these plants and urban environments, as well as taking an interest in the plants themselves.

Still working on finalising how this will work... I'm thinking something along the lines of exchanging your thoughts about Stirchley for a bundle of hollow stems (locally sourced) that ladybirds, solitary bees, earwigs and other 'creepys' will be most thankful for. The menu of stems so far includes, controversially, Japanese Knotweed (very dead... last year's stems...), Himalayan Balsam, and Cow Parsnip/ common hogweed (dried stems that have gone to seed). If you know of any other locally growing hollow stemmed plants that could be used for insect homes let me know!

The pic is me fashioning some cow parsnip seed heads. They are such an impressive structure! For those conservationists among you, I took them from an area along the River Rea that had many, many cow parsley/common hogweed seed heads, thus not impacting greatly on their reproduction cycle...

Over and out for now anyway!

1 comment:

  1. Hi Roxie!
    As promised, a link to a semi-vacant building site here

    There are other bits if you mooch around in there.

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