This summer has been jam-packed with creativity! We’ve been busy planning, organizing, and delivering a series of events designed to inspire local groups to connect with native UK plants and fungi.

We began the project by undertaking some research into some plants and fungi that we felt would inspire diverse groups to take an interest in these often under-valued parts of our ecosystems. We then made some resources and brainstormed ideas for workshops to learn about people’s favourite species. Each artwork created will become part of a large collaborative collage shaped like a map of the UK, showcasing species that matter most to the people involved. 

We kicked our workshops off at a plant sale at Treborth Botanic Garden, where we set up a stand inviting attendees to draw or paint their favourite plant or fungi.  The creativity showed by members of the public was inspiring and helped set the tone for the rest of our project! We saw some stunning species such as lily of the valley, forget-me-nots, and foxglove represented. 

Next, we ran a session with the Mon Gwyrdd Youth Forum. The young people created beautiful artworks for all kinds of species including witches butter fungus, bluebells, dead man’s fingers fungus and daisies! The session was also a valuable learning experience — it showed us the importance of making our workshops more interactive with an element of exploration to help people connect with the plants and fungi on display.

With these improvements, we brought the workshop to the North Wales Africa Society, where we saw even more fantastic contributions! We had a great time working on collages and applying our new-found knowledge to our artworks. People of all ages got stuck in, and we saw wonderful species represented including fly agaric, bramble, dog’s violet, morel and daffodils. 

From this experience, we also learnt that it’s important for all participants to understand the full extent of what the workshop would entail, to talk with the others in our group about the species and explore more deeply what we liked about them. With this in mind, we ran a session in our office in Bangor where we saw an output of lovely artworks such as primrose, common spotted orchid and amethyst deceiver. 

Participants from all workshops were also given free packs of native wildflower seeds to plant at home — a small but powerful way to support local wildlife and allow our native species to thrive across our communities. 

We’re looking forward to running two more sessions, and we’re excited to see how the final collage will come together! Whether you joined us in person or took part online, thank you for being part of this journey. As autumn approaches, we can’t wait to share the completed artwork with you. Keep an eye out on our blog to find how the rest of the project goes! 

Want to get involved? There’s still time! Send in your submissions by 15 October for a chance to be featured in our final collage.  

Check out our blog here to find out how you can get involved!