Everton blazes with wildflower meadows in time for the Liverpool Biennial

Everton blazes with wildflower meadows in time for the Liverpool Biennial

Two acres of the city have been turned into a colourful canvas, in the spirit of the meadows and wetlands which earned such praise at the Olympic Park

When you reach Liverpool on the M62, one of the first signs you see (along with one to Knotty Ash of Ken Dodd fame) directs you to theNational Wildflower Centre. This flourishing place now has a rival across the city in Everton as these pictures show.


They have been sown and landscaped in Everton Park by the artistRebecca Chesney following a research residency which she did at theYorkshire Sculpture Park over in West Yorkshire, near the birthplaces of both Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore. Like the Sheffield University botanists who brought the meadows and wetlands of London's Olympic Park to such perfection in time for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, they are a blaze of colour at a key moment in Liverpool's year.

Commissioned by Landlife and the Arts Council, they will be in flower during the Liverpool Biennial openings this coming weekend, when Chesney willdiscuss them publicly in a temporary dome at the park with artist, landscaper and designer of 'edible gardens' Fritz Haeg and others on Sunday 16 September.


Part of their purpose is to encourage the city's growing population of urban bees and Chesney says:

They are already buzzing with bees and lots of other insects too. It's hoped that the meadows will remain on site for at least 3 years. This year the flowers are mostly annuals, but next year I'm hoping the perennials will dominate.


By the look of them, the wildflowers will win local support for a very much longer time in place, instead of the previous mown grass; and other northern cities will surely copy.