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Current Projects

For further information on any of these projects please telephone 0151 737 1819 or email info@landlife.org.uk

NATIONAL WILDFLOWER CENTRE
Landlife founded the National Wildflower Centre in 1998 and continues to support its activities and development.
We provided management for its Lottery project Wildflower Heroes which aims to increase audience diversity, environmental learning and inclusion through a creative mix of arts and science activities.

For more information contact info@nwc.org.uk Tel: 0151 738 1913.

Soil Inversion (2002- )
A Landlife Project joint funded by the Esmeé Fairbairn Foundation and the John Ellerman Foundation to undertake trials of a plough that inverts the soil profile to create the right conditions for wildflowers and improved tree growth.

Sowings of wildflowers and tree plantings started in 2003. You can now see the spectacular results at Wheeldon Copse, Alvanley, Cheshire - a project in partnership with the Woodland Trust. Benefits for tree growth can be seen at Lunt. Wildlife Surveys can be read here.

Landlife launched its new technical publication Soil Inversion Works with updated research and practical landscape applications for this groundbreaking creative conservation approach. Over 35 sites have now been created nationally, many using soil inversion, and we are keen to share our experience of the benefits of this technique, particularly for introducing native wildflowers into new woodlands.

The publication is available to download as a pdf here. If you would prefer a printed version please contact us by email info@landlife.org.uk, or tel 0151 737 1819, cost £5.

More about the project here

National Wildflower Farm
Acres of stunning wildflowers will become a familiar sight in St.Helens Merseyside, with the development of Landlife Wildflowers Ltd at its new National Wildflower Farm site.

Landlife's new project at Inglenook Farm, Rainford, St Helens is also supported by
St Helen's Metropolitan Borough Council and Knowsley Hall Estates.

For more information.

FOREST OF FLOWERS
We completed work on four sites in Leicestershire and Derbyshire to introduce wildflowers into new woodlands, in partnership with the Woodland Trust and with local communities.

Some of the larger areas were deep ploughed using Soil inversion which we trialed in our Break New Ground project.

WHAT? WHY? BUTTERFLY
Landlife achieved funding in 2007 through BBC Breathing Places and Big Lottery to improve wildflower places for butterflies at our base in Court Hey Park, home of the National Wildflower Centre on Merseyside.

We ran several butterfly information events over the summer to raise awareness of the importance of butterflies to our local environment. We worked with national butterfly charity Butterfly Conservation and the MerseyBioBank, the local records office for Merseyside's flora and fauna. In October, we planted 7,000 native wildflowers in Court Hey Park with the help of volunteers and Landlife staff. We will follow this with seed sowing in Spring 2008 of more native wildflowers species that attract butterflies and moths.

Over the winter, we worked on some new butterfly interpretation displays for visitors to the Centre that will be in place from Spring 2008.

For more details of the What?Why? Butterfly project contact jpell@landlife.org.uk tel 0151 737 1819

GLADSTONE ROOTS
We are supporting the Friends of Court Hey Park with their Heritage Lottery Funded Project Gladstone Roots, a unique community archaeological project to explore the heritage of the Gladstone family in Court Hey Park by excavating the site of the Victorian family home.

For more information please visit their web site.

BLUEBELL RECOVERY
One of the most well loved spring species has to be the British bluebell with its beautiful drooping head and vibrant colour. As its woodland habitat disappears, so has the chance of coming across it in the wild.

Landlife has been working for a number of years to develop sustainable stocks of bulbs and plant them in new woodlands. Begun as the Bluebell Recovery project with funding support from a number of agencies, it is successfully creating new bluebell glades. An editorial piece in the Liverpool Daily Post helps tell the story.

BLUEBELL and CORNFLOWER APPEAL
Donations from this appeal will support the growing and planting of these internationally important British species in decline.