Roots & Radicles (6)

Sheffield is one of the greenest cities in the UK, and a hub of horticultural activity. This Roots & Radicles in Sheffield gives you the chance to explore the city's green spaces and to engage with an enthusiastic, knowledgeable and inquisitive group of people in the process. This event takes you on a walk through Sheffield, where you will discover time-honoured tradition and new and innovative ideas when it comes to horticulture, landscapes and sustainability. We start with an interactive talk by Zac Tudor of the Grey to Green Project, which is a groundbreaking environmental and economic development strategy rolled out by the Sheffield City Council to enhance green space, biodiversity and sustainability in the city. From here, we will head to the Sheffield Botanical Gardens, where Peter and Trish Kohn will give us an exclusive tour of the 19 acre gardens. First opened in 1836, the gardens have been a centre for horticulture and garden design for well over one and a half centuries  - and boast grade-II listed glasshouses and the National Collections of Weigela, Sarcococca and Diervilla. The event promises to be an excellent chance to discover one of the greenest gems of urban England, and, as always, to meet with other YPS members, plant experts and garden enthusiasts! 

Zac’s focus is on creating healthy resilient towns and cities. He uses urban greening and blue infrastructure to create adaptive urban centres which develop multifunctional roles that help benefit people, the environment, and biodiversity.  Zac’s creative work has been founded around 22 years of leading the practical application of beautiful urban landscapes that help bring people and nature together. He has had responsibility for major public realm and infrastructure delivery within the planning framework and has proven design experience in the ability to lead multi-disciplinary public realm teams from inception to completion. 

Trish and Peter lived and worked in Sheffield before taking early retirement and moving to NW  Scotland in 1994. They bought a very remote croft  on the west coast of Sutherland (the most northwesterly county of Britain) where they created a garden from scratch which they opened to the public for ten seasons from 2000 to 2009. Visitors arrived by boat as the nearest road was 2 km away. Initially they raised the majority of plants from seed and sold plants to the visitors, many of whom also subscribed to their seed list. The garden was one of the Independent newspaper's '10 Best gardens to visit in Summer' and one of the 'thousand gardens of the world you must visit before you die'.

They closed the garden when their boatman could no longer bring visitors, and returned to Sheffield in 2010 where they started to volunteer in Sheffield Botanical Gardens. They continue to raise plants for sale to raise funds but also to enhance the plantings in the garden, particularly a South African Bed which they created.

We’re starting at 11am and meeting at the Grey to Green project, where Zac will give us an in-depth look into its creation and development (starting at Charter Square, meeting point on the upper terrace). 

Then we'll travel to the Sheffield Botanical Gardens, eating lunch en route (please bring your own!), for our tour with Peter and Trish Kohn.  All in all it's a fair amount of walking, so a good idea to wear comfortable shoes - not a problem for gardeners. 

Our mission is to aid the dissemination of propagation knowledge through the generations; to encourage more young horticulturalists into propagation and nursery roles; and to inspire learning of all areas of the natural world. We want everyone to be able to access these events and as such, tickets to this event (including access to the Gardens!) are free, but donations are always welcome to help support our work.

Places for this event are limited so do be quick!