The Little Potting Club is a free childrens gardening and nature club. We strive to offer free access for all, with no booking or other requirements to participate.
As a free community gardening and nature club for children and their families. We take pride in planting and growing vegetables and flowers with a seed to mouth approach. Whilst supporting our local community by means of maintaining public green spaces for all to enjoy in our local park.
As well as growing food we also grow flowers to help support our insect habitats and pollinators. We plant these out in a public park where the wider park community have access to enjoy their beauty. We contribute with native plants both annual and perennials for all to enjoy.
Please view our Gardening page for further information on this.
In addition to our flowers bringing joy to the wider park community we take part in many park improvement projects.
Such as planting up a circular area, once over grown with laurel and rhododendron then replacing with spring bulbs; daffodils, tuplips and alliums.
Other projects such as planting and installing a willow arbour, commissoning local trades to build a planter bench with a rose arch and wood animal sculptures to enhance the parks green spaces. Adding enrichment for families with children, schools and nurseries who access the parks public spaces.
Here we discovered victorian water pipes that had been thrown up from the parks disused underground network. They lay littering the water course and so we reused them in the garden. The club created an access tunnel from their wildlife pond for amphibians and small mammals to access the pond under cover. We planted these three up with flowers for a pond side display.
One of our families had a lovely idea of creating a willow planter basket with our left over willow rods. This came at a time when the club enroled for the RHS Growing in Small Spaces project. We created two of these and planted them up with spring and summer flowering plants.
The Little Potting Club is passionate about delivering nature conservation education within its activities. To further our learning and development in wildlife and nature conservation our group takes part in citizen science projects as well as regular annual conservation data collection. By inviting guest group/charities who help educate on supporting our natural environment, such as the Bumblebee Conservation Trust or the Ribble River Trust are some examples, it opens up new learning opportunities.
Please view our Nature Conservation page for more information.
The Little Potting Club run outdoors all year. This gives families and children an opportunity to observe and take part in seasonal changes within the garden and the wider green spaces. During the winter months when gardening is less abudent we take part in garden maintainence and creating natural crafts. Using natural resources where ever possible.
Please view our Nature Crafts page for more infomation on this.
The Little Potting Club is more than just a childrens gardening club. It embraces nature, supports the wider park community, educates on nature conservation and offers families a place to feel accepted and welome.
History
The Little Potting Club was established in 2020 under a parks supporters group. We grew from offering simple gardening activities into a commuinity garden that supports nature, children, growing and a park community within its activities. Growing from there the Little Potting Club created links with local wildlife and conservation charities to take part in citizen science and conservation projects. Such at the Big Bee Hotel or Hedgehog Street and WaterBlitz for example. As part of gardening alongside wildlife and our local environment we achieved awards and recognition.
The Little Potting Club is now an independent constituted community group that has branched out from under the park supporters group. The club applies for funding where possible to help support the free access to club activities. By offering a free accessible club it has made it possible to support families who would otherwise not access out of school clubs to support their families social, physical and outdoor nature contact. The Little Potting Club are proud of our achievements and what we offer within the local community, to families and the natural world.
