Volunteers at Alexandra Park Greenhouse, off St Helens Road, will also showcase their sustainable projects and future plans on Saturday, April 26, from 10.30am.
The art exhibition will feature works by children from the YoYo Club, a creative family art group run by Art in the Park on the park’s former bowling green. The show, organised with help from Arts on Prescription, will run alongside the greenhouse’s regular plant sales. Admission is free.
World Earth Day on April 22 aims to encourage people to unite behind the drive for renewable energy and to work towards tripling the global generation of green energy. This year’s theme is Our Power, Our Planet, with about one billion people in 193 countries taking part.
Innovations at the greenhouse include a water cart which means the end of using hoses to water plants, removing a trip hazard for both volunteers and visitors. The Learning to Grow Group, a sub group of Transition Town Hastings, gave the greenhouse a £500 donation towards the cart.
The greenhouse’s horticultural team researched how they could economically continue to propagate and overwinter plants in the unheated greenhouse. Thanks to advice from greenhouse patron Fergus Garrett, head gardener at Great Dixter, and Tom Brown, head gardener at West Dean College of Arts and Conservation, volunteers invested £200 in a heated seed propagation bench. The bench will allow more stock plants and seeds to be grown, reducing mileage and costs.
Future plans include a grey water filtration system. It will feature a double sink and electric water heater in the propagation area for handwashing hygiene and pot washing. There will be a filter system to treat the greenhouse’s waste water.
