Posts by Eden Freeman-Payne
Rewilding Parliament Square: A meadow for London and a symbol of intent to restore nature across Great Britain
Parliament Square — the green space opposite the Houses of Parliament — has long been one of the UK’s most symbolic sites of public demonstration. Yet recent restrictions have left it eerily silent: a dead zone. The square has never been more than a tightly managed monoculture of grass. We want to give it back…
Read MoreWe Won CIRIA’S Biodiversity Challenge Award in Innovation for Nature!
The urgency is clear: since the 1930s, 97% of wildflower meadows have been lost, a decline felt most acutely in urban areas (Kew Gardens, 2017). With 80% of the global population now residing in cities, it is more critical than ever that urban residents can engage with and learn from nature (IBISWorld, 2023). We frequently…
Read MoreVertical Meadow: Urban Hotspots for a Crucial but Overlooked Pollinator – The Hoverfly
We set up Sensibee AI insect-detecting cameras on one of our living walls with The Crown Estate at Spring Gardens in Central London and in a pristine native wildflower meadow near Bath — and found 40 times more hoverflies on our London living wall. Despite their importance, hoverflies are often overlooked. Yet they are the…
Read MoreInfluencing Legislation and Making a Home for Nature in the Most Unlikely of Places – Site Hoarding
In the midst of cranes, scaffolding and temporary fencing, construction sites often feel like the least likely places to find nature. But what if they weren’t? What if these in-between spaces—so often overlooked—could become vibrant, biodiverse pockets of life? At Vertical Meadow, we see site hoardings not as barriers, but as blank canvases. And we…
Read MoreDownload INaturalist and Show Us What You Find on the Wall!
Many of our Vertical Meadows are now listed as specific locations on INaturalist. Download INaturalist on Iphone Download INaturalist on Android We’d love for people to start registering what they find! iNaturalist is one of the world’s most powerful tools for documenting biodiversity. Every observation—whether it’s a bee, bird, or bryophyte—helps scientists, conservationists, and communities…
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