大象传媒

John is in the beautiful village of Pebworth, as quintessentially English as you can get, tucked in the corner of Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire.聽For anyone wanting to start a community garden, look no further than here.聽

The community has embraced planting everywhere they can to boost diversity 鈥� even creating a village pond to give a helping hand.聽聽

As well as links to Shakespeare, this beautiful corner of rural Britain perched in the Vale of Evesham known as the fruit and veg basket of England - 聽has historically had horticulture at the heart of its economy.聽

With market gardening a huge part of life here, families earned their living from the earth selling produce from asparagus to strawberries. Today, 10 allotments now stand pride of place growing the villagers鈥� veggies. Pebworth is an inspiration to many - but why does it matter?

In his call to arms, John reveals shocking statistics from climate change to the radical decline in flora and fauna, how community gardens have long been therapeutic with their origins at hospitals, why we should embrace them again in 2021 and how every plant can help from carbon capture and soil health to food miles, community spirit and the wellbeing of all creatures great and small, including us.

Leading by example we鈥檒l will be putting the Countryfile stamp as we help to create a community garden on our home turf in Bristol. 聽

Joining forces with Bristol City Council and the Royal Horticultural Society, Matt and Margherita get stuck in with the local community in Hartcliffe on a three and a half acre plot. It lies in the shadow of Dundry Hill and rural Somerset in one of the most deprived areas of the city.

With their team of local volunteers of all ages, Matt and Margherita will be working on part of it to create a community veg garden with companion flower planting, an orchard to spruce up and a pond to clear. But they won鈥檛 be alone.

Guy Barter, RHS top horticulturist, will arrive with plants and raised beds and plenty of advice. Sara Venn from Incredible Edibles will be helping out with veg seeds and clever hacks from recycling old potato peeling to make new spuds to how to breathe new life into root veg.聽

Bristol City Council will be helping out with veg plants. BCC is one of the few councils who provide this service to the community but then perhaps it鈥檚 no surprise as Bristol is forward thinking 鈥� the first major city in the UK to declare an ecological emergency in February 2020 and drawing up plans to remedy the crisis.

And this won鈥檛 just be ANY garden. We鈥檙e working with the Natural History Museum to use our garden as a test bed for cutting-edge science. Soil forensics analyses the DNA of the Hartcliffe soil to reveal what has been planted here and what lived here over hundreds of years. The same forensics will be used to analyse the pond in a visual experiment of dry ice and instant freezing. This聽 also gives the Hartcliffe community a baseline to be able to monitor how biodiversity develops over the years.聽聽

And for a future revisit to the garden, they鈥檒l also be putting in a specialised sound recording technology that will enable our Hartcliffe community to聽hear聽what鈥檚 going on in the world hidden beneath their feet.

As we revisit the community garden throughout the episode, we鈥檒l catch up with some of the people who will benefit most 鈥� from the year 1 schoolchildren learning where their food comes from to Yogi from the Natural History Museum鈥檚 Youth Advisory Group who will be showing the year 6 and 7鈥檚 a new gizmo that will engage them in community gardening.

聽Attached to the children鈥檚 phones, the gizmo measures temperature, humidity, light intensity, noise levels, air pollutants. The measurements the children take today can be compared with those taken across the weeks and months of the garden鈥檚 development.

While our Bristol garden is just beginning, Charlotte discovers a shining and inspiring example in Glasgow of what it could become.聽

Grow 73 was set up by local mum, Eugenie Aroutcheff, in 2015. Named after the postcode they live in (G73), it鈥檚 a community garden group that brings generations together to learn how to grow fruit, vegetables and plants plus a train station green space/art installation.聽

From humble beginnings, they now have five community patches including three recently acquired bowling greens which will be put down to gardens.聽

Charlotte discovers how the gardens have helped to bring the community together and gets planting pollinator-friendly flower and potato seeds in whisky barrels in a neighbouring street.聽

It鈥檚 all part of a new community B line project. B-lines are critical. Imagine trying to travel around Britain without our road and rail network 鈥� it would be impossible! But for much of our wildlife this is their reality.聽

Confined to small fragments of habitat as our climate and landscape rapidly changes, it has been predicted that 40-70% of species could go extinct if action is not taken to enable species to move through the landscape.

To discover just why these habitats are so important, Ellie is in Conwy with Plant Life botanical expert Trevor Dines in his four and half acre meadow in North Wales.

On a single day in summer, one acre of wildflower meadow can contain聽3 million flowers, producing聽1 kg of nectar sugar. That鈥檚 enough to support nearly聽96,000 honeybees per day. But since the 1930s, we have lost nearly 7.5 million acres of flower-rich meadows and pastures.聽Just 1% of our countryside now provides this floral feast for pollinators.

Trevor鈥檚 meadow supports a multi-cultural community of 25-30 species, complete with plant power struggles, production lines, transport links and even a red-light district.

As Joe and Trevor get down on their hands and knees to get a closer look at this buzzing meadow metropolis, we use a probe lens to聽get a macro, bug's-eye-view of the stand out characters of this world:

Yellow Rattle - the Robin Hood of the meadows, robbing water and nutrients from the Grasses who are in turn the thugs of the undergrowth, muscling out delicate wildflowers. The high-rise buildings of Lesser Trefoil and White Clover and towering above it all, the skyscrape-like Orchids. And the subterranean world of fungi, creating the sewer network.

Sex sells in the flower kingdom, and it鈥檚 the displays of attractive wildflowers that form the red light district, attracting pollinators: Dandelions, Ribwort Plantain & Bulbous Buttercups.

To better understand the vital role the meadow habitat plays in supporting pollinators and other invertebrate species, Joe meets Liam Olds from Bug Life. Using his suction sampler 鈥榯he pooter鈥� Liam hoovers up a section of Trevor鈥檚 meadow to discover how rich the multicultural make-up of these cities really are.

Wildflowers are the true restaurants and cafes of these cities, capturing the power of the sun and serving it up for a whole host of pollinators and other invertebrates to enjoy.聽

Ellie and Trevor count the number of wildflowers in a metre square of the meadow, and using Plant Life鈥檚 online Nectar calculator (part of their 鈥楨very Flower Counts鈥� campaign) calculate the amount of Nectar generated in that spot, on that very day.

Helen joins botanist Josh Styles who鈥檚 on a mission to save some of our loveliest and rarest native wildflowers from extinction.聽

They鈥檙e at Edge Hill University in Ormskirk, Lancashire, where Josh first discovered his love of wildflowers and the very rare Dune Helleborine.聽

A diversity plan that Josh put together for the university and its botanists of the future is getting an update this year to improve habitats for wildlife across campus & help naturally increase the fauna & flora. 聽

But there鈥檚 one more contribution he wants to make, and he wants Helen鈥檚 help: plant a community bed of some of our loveliest native wildflowers.聽

As she helps plant, Helen not only discovers the wonders our wildflowers perform for nature but also for us as Josh shares their medicinal benefits.聽

And with a new Plant Science degree studying plants and their healing powers, this will be a perfect study bed for the for students 鈥� and to inspire others to grow these little beauties in their own community gardens and homes.聽

And handily, they have some spare plants and seeds which they will 鈥渟end鈥� to Bristol to be planted in the Hartcliffe orchard

Back in Pebworth, John is re-united with balcony gardener Isabelle Palmer who he met via zoom in our Plant Britain Autumn special.聽

Now they can meet in person in one of Pebworth鈥檚 Open Gardens.聽

It鈥檚 the perfect inspiration for John and Isabelle to get busy creating micro-gardens, mini- meadows, veg in a glass, for a windowsill, window box or balcony.聽

No space is too small to do your bit!

Getting young people into growing their own food and learning how to cook is Sharon McMaster鈥檚 mission.聽She works with seven schools across Northern Ireland.聽

Sean rolls his sleeves up to help Sharon and the pupils of Moira Primary in County Down to revive the school garden which is need of TLC after lockdown.聽

He鈥檒l be digging over beds, helping plant seeds in the school polytunnel, planting spuds and picking wild garlic.聽

From cooking on the curriculum to after school community gardening, children from the age of just three are benefiting聽from Sharon鈥檚 sessions.聽聽

Using herbs and vegetables direct from the school鈥檚 community garden, Sharon encourages children's awareness of where real food comes from, eating healthily and having some green-fingered fun.

But it鈥檚 not just the gardening and good food that has huge benefits. As Sean discovers, spending time outdoors has positive impacts on young children.聽

It鈥檚 believed that one way to improve recall is to experience something new and unfamiliar, which releases dopamine into the hippocampus where memories are created.聽 Outdoor activity is also believed to help reduce stress, improve memory, boost school performance and improve learning for neurodiverse children.聽

Headmaster Mr Ford tells Sean of the remarkable transformation he鈥檚 seen in many of his pupils and why he鈥檚 moved classes outdoors.

After his lesson, Sean joins the queue for some hand-made flatbreads and wild garlic pesto, fresh from the ground鈥�. enthusiastically prepared by the pupils and Blue Peter鈥檚 Adam Beales who reveals BP鈥檚 new green badge scheme to get children engaged in gardening.